^H 


11 


B 



.^^fflSlffiSHHtli! 



is 



'i 1' ;i 






iii| 






ii 
ili 






Ii ! 




Class L"?^ \0^S 

Book ,34 K5 - 



DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING IN 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



Departmental Teaching 
in Elementary Schools 



BY 
VAN EVRIE KILPATRICK, A. M. 



ILLUSTRATED 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1908 

^ill rights reserved 






LIBHARY of OOWehESS 
1 wo Copies rt«twtv^j 

APR 6 VdOQ 



QUSi^ 



JUci n-'j. 



I CQP Y_sia_ j 



Copyright, igo8 
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Set up and electrotyped. Printed March IQ07 



THE MASON-HENRY PRESS 
SYRACUSE, N. Y. 



PREFACE 

Ever since President Charles W. Eliot 
of Harvard emphasized the necessity of en- 
riching the elementary curriculum through 
departmental teaching, there have been a 
number of efforts in various cities of the 
country to try out the suggestion. 

Dr. William H. Maxwell, the chief ex- 
ponent of departmental teaching in the 
United States, has encouraged its growth in 
New York City during the last seven years. 

It has there become the prevailing 
method of teaching in the last two years of 
the elementary schools. Its success is pro- 
nounced. Numerous inquiries indicate that 
the leaders of other educational systems are 
greatly interested in the new departure. 

In adding to the literature of the subject, 
I have written entirely from the standpoint 
of a teacher. I have spoken from years of 
experience, both in private and in public 



vi PREFACE 

schools. I have taught in schools where 
the departmental plan was not used and in 
schools where it was used. I have taught 
in large schools and in small schools. I 
have organized departmental teaching and 
have supervised it. 

Out of all these years of experience has 
grown a positive conviction that a proper 
form of departmental teaching would bring 
a wealth of gain to any elementary school. 
But it must be effectively adapted. 

The purpose of this little treatise has 
been to present the most effective plan of 
adaptation and use. An effort has also 
been made to base the plan upon well- 
known principles of school organization. 
These principles may seem commonplace, 
but they are necessarily fundamental. 

I have never witnessed a failure in 
departmental teaching, but that I have 
marveled why it did not take place before 
it really did, as the mistakes in method 
were plainly apparent. This work has, 



PREFACE vii 

therefore, been made for the most part a 
practical text-book of method. 

I have never listened to a speaker, or 
read an author, who argued against de- 
partmental teaching, but that I have ob- 
served that they objected to conditions and 
results which should not exist in a depart- 
mental system. 

They have all voiced with unstinted zeal 
the shortcomings of the special teacher 
system as belonging alike to the depart- 
mental. This work has, therefore, been 
made argumentative. 

They have all voiced with unstinted zeal 
opposed to the departmental, but it is even 
supplanted by the departmental plan. 

The value of both the special teacher sys- 
tem and the one-teacher plan is preserved in 
the new common-subject plan of depart- 
mental teaching. 

Van Evrie Kilpatrick. 
Public School 52, New York, 
February, 1908. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I. 

Introduction i 

1. Definition i 

2. No Educational Panacea 2 

3. Historical Statement 3 

4. Special Teacher Phase 4 

5. Nomenclature 8 

CHAPTER H. 

Advantages n 

1. Expert Teaching i2 

2. Improved Discipline 13 

3. Improved Physical Conditions 17 

4. Better Equipment 20 

5. Enriched Curriculum 23 

6. Unity and Force in School Management 25 

7. Other Considerations 30 

(a) High School Articulation 30 

(b) Greater Interest 30 

(c) Teachers will be Attracted 31 

(d) Teachers will be Better Prepared 31 

(e) Distribution of Sex Control 32 

(f) Recreation Provided 32 

(g) Special Talent Developed 32 

(h) Responsibility and Independence of Children 

Developed 32 

(i) Individuality Increased 33 

(j) Favoritism Lessened 33 

CHAPTER III 

Objections 34 

I. Overwork 36 

ix 



CONTENTS 

CQrrelation Difficult 37 

Teachers Become Narrowminded 41 

School Organization May Become More Difficult. . . 44 

Teacher's Personal Influence Lessened 46 

Miscellaneous Objections 47 

The New, Absent or Incompetent Teacher 49 



CHAPTER IV. 

Principles of Adaptation 51 

1. The Prime Functions of the Teacher 51 

(a) Relation to the Pupil 51 

(b) Relation to the Branches of Study 53 

(c) Relation to the School 54 

2. The Threefold Nature of the Child 56 

(a) The Intellectual Nature 56 

(b) The Moral Nature 56 

(c) The Physical Nature 59 

CHAPTER V. 

Plan of Adaptation 61 

1. Personal Control of Children 61 

2. Presentation of Studies 62 

(a) A Common Subject — English 62 

(b) Departmental Studies 65 

3. Faculty Organization 66 

4. Equipment of Departments 67 

5. Movement of Classes 69 

6. The Introductory Organization 69 

(a) Selection of Classes 69 

(b) Assignment of Studies 71 

(c) Preparation of Program 77 

Particular Advantages of the Common-Subject Plan 

OF Departmental Organization 77 

1. Personal Control of Children is Secured 77 

2. School Management is Simplified 78 



CONTENTS 



XI 



3. The Plan is easily Adaptable to all Ordinary School 

Conditions. Two Grades to a Teacher 78 

CHAPTER VI. 
Details of Adaptation 81 

1. Assignment of Studies 81 

2. Programme 82 

3. Coordination of Departments 82 

4. Length of Periods 83 

5. Movement of Classes 84. 

6. Study 85 

7. Discipline 87 

8. Attendance 87 

9. Correlation 90 

10. Absent Teachers 90 

11. Records and Reports 93 

12. Spelling and Penmanship 93 

13. Text-books and Supplies 94 

14. Fire Drills and Regular Dismissals 94 

15. Detention 95 

16. Signals 95 

17. Location of Departments 96 

18. Management of School Implements 96 

CHAPTER Vll. 
Mistakes in Adaptation 98 

1. All Studies Departmentalized 100 

2. Children not moved from Room to Room loi 

3. Music and Drawing not Departmentalized loi 

4. Class Teachers held responsible for all Discipline... 102 

5. Departments of Unrelated Studies 102 

6. No Head of Department 103 

7. No Effective Study Period 103 

8. Promotion not Proportionate 104 

9. Too much Presentation 104 

10. Too many Teachers in a Departmental Division... 105 



xii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Limitations io6 

1. Size of School io6 

2. Size of Class and Room io6 

3. Part of the Course to be Departmentalized 107 

4. Number of Teachers 108 

CHAPTER IX. 

Other Plans of Departmental Teaching 109 

1. The Study-Hall Method 109 

2. All Teaching under Specialists iii 

3. The Peripatetic Method in 

4. A Departmental Unit for each Year 112 

CHAPTER X. 

General Considerations 114 

I 
2 
3 
4' 



Optional Introduction 114 

Preparation of Teachers 114 

Examination of Teachers 116 

Comparative Results 117 

Units of Work n8 

Laboratory Work 120 

Individual Education 121. 



APPENDIX. 
Special Description of Illustrations..... 125 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Plate I: Special Departmental Room 68 

Plate II : Teachers' Programmes 73 

Plate III : Teachers' Programmes 74 

Plate IV : Class Programmes 75 

Plate V : Class Programmes 76 

Plate VI: A Model Departmental Programme in 

Graphic Outline 80 

Plate VII: Special Departmental Attendance Record 88 

Plate VIII: Special Departmental Attendance Record 89 

Plate IX: Departmental Report Card (Face) 91 

Plate X: Departmental Report Card (Back) 92 

Plate XI: Pupils' Box for Holding Pencils and other 

Articles, 97 

xiii 



DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 
IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 



CHAPTER I. 
INTRODUCTION 

That method of school organization un- 
der which each teacher in an elementary 
school instructs in one subject or in one 
group of related subjects only is generally 
known as departmental teaching. This 
plan of teaching is very well understood 
from the almost universal practice in high 
schools and colleges. 

It has also been employed in varying de- 
grees in the private elementary schools, 
and, for that reason, its general manner of 
use with young children has long been com- 
prehended. The employment of the de- 
partmental plan in private schools has 
doubtless been continued, both because more 



2 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

effective, and because it has been held up 
as a point of superiority over public school 
methods. 

This work will attempt to put forward 
a most practical plan of departmental 
teaching. It has been developed from ex- 
perience and from elementary principles 
of pedagogy. But it must not be imagined 
that this modern adaptation of an old meth- 
od will cure all the ills of the ordinary 
graded school. No educational panacea is 
being recommended. 

Following the natural laws of growth in 
the social and economic world, the time is 
ripe for this application of these laws in a 
modified adaptation of departmental teach- 
ing in elementary schools. 

The experience of the last few years very 
forcefully indicates that this system of 
school organization will surely improve to 
a greater or less extent, depending upon the 
judgment and enthusiasm of the intro- 
ducers, the results in any elementary school. 



INTRODUCTION 3 

Departmental teaching, however, as a 
plan of teaching, does not appear to have 
been tried to any wide extent in public ele- 
mentary schools, until within the last ten 
years. Isolated schools in Brooklyn, Bos- 
ton, and other cities have reported that 
they have used departmental teaching for 
a number of years. 

The study-hall form of departmental 
teaching was used to a considerable extent 
wherever buildings of that plan were con- 
structed. Judging from meager reports, 
this plan was doubtless in use in many sec- 
tions of the East fifty or sixty years ago. 

Some twenty-five years ago a general 
demand in our large cities for more expert 
teaching, especially of the newer branches, 
resulted in the special-teacher phase of 
elementary instruction. This has been con- 
founded with departmental teaching be- 
cause it is a certain manifestation of the 
desire to improve instruction in any given 
branch. 



4 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

The growth of the employment of the 
special teacher in the public educational 
systems of our country is really a most in- 
teresting chapter in the history of depart- 
mental teaching. 

^ Tt has shown that educational leaders 
have begun to realize that one teacher can- 
not efifectively teach all the branches of the 
curriculum, so the special teacher was ap- 
pointed to proceed on his peripatetic round. 
The strength and weakness of this system 
only pointed out the more clearly the 
necessity of a specially equipped teacher in 
each branch. To completely secure the 
well recognized advantages of expert teach- 
ing, it is necessary to select the best system 
of applying the principle. The special 
teacher has come, and is continuing to 
teach in public school systems of our cities, 
but no one as yet seems to look upon his 
position as affording a basis for a better 
system. There is a disposition to look upon 
the plan as an excrescence. Many educators 



INTRODUCTION 5 

have, doubtless, had the special teacher sys- 
tem in mind when bringing forward objec- 
tions to the departmental plan. The two 
methods are, however, widely separated. 

No extended adoption of the depart- 
mental plan seems to have occurred until 
about the year 1900. It was then intro- 
duced in New York City. 

Under the leadership of Dr. William H. 
Maxwell, City Superintendent of Schools, 
a number of elementary schools began the 
new method in the seventh and eighth years 
of the course. 

The great majority of these schools were 
successful, and this system of organization 
rapidly spread until at the present time 
there are over 150 elementary schools so 
organized. 

The feeling in New York City relative 
to the new plan of teaching may be gath- 
ered from an epitome of several reports 
which have been made public from time to 
time. 



6 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

The fifth annual report of Superintend- 
ent Maxwell, contains the replies to a circu- 
lar letter to principals relative to depart- 
mental teaching. These replies show that 
the majority of principals are decidedly in 
favor of the new plan. For example, 124 
out of 132 principals reported the ''interest 
of teachers" as "highly satisfactory," or 
"greatly increased," while no out of 132 
presented the same report relative to the 
"interest of pupils." 

Dr. Edward W. Stitt, District Superin- 
tendent conducted a questionnaire among 
the 43 departmental teachers of the 8th and 
1 2th districts, in the form of an Australian 
ballot, so that each teacher felt free to ex- 
press his unbiased opinion. In answer to 
the question, "Are you in favor of depart- 
mental instruction?" 39 answered "Yes," 
2 were undecided, and 2 answered "No." 

Mr. John W. RafTerty, Principal of Pub- 
lic School 19, Brooklyn, took a vote of his 
departmental pupils in such a way as to se- 



INTRODUCTION 7 

cure a free opinion, and found that 241 out 
of 294 voted in favor of departmental in- 
struction. 

In 1905, Dr. William H. Maxwell sent 
out a circular letter which sought the 
opinions of principals with reference to the 
value of departmental teaching in the last 
two years of the course, and whether its 
adoption should be made compulsory. A 
large majority expressed themselves as 
highly in favor of departmental teaching 
in the seventh and eighth years, but they 
opposed the proposition to make its adoption 
compulsory, and hence in New York the 
principal of each school may or may not 
organize his school according to the de- 
partmental plan. 

Following the wide adoption of depart- 
mental work in New York City, several 
cities in New York State and throughout 
the Middle West have reported an increas- 
ing number of schools which have adopted 
it. 



8 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

Albany has several schools which are 
organized departmentally. Syracuse, Buf- 
falo, Troy, and other cities are trying the 
plan. In other states, Chicago, Philadel- 
phia, and Boston have shown the greatest 
interest in the movement. 

Considerable difficulty has been found in 
fixing a proper nomenclature for this sys- 
tem. Certain circumlocutions and inac- 
curate expressions are being used both in 
elementary and high schools in connection 
with the departments as applied to school 
organization. 

The system of school organization under 
which a single teacher or one teacher in- 
structs the pupils of a certain class in all 
the studies of a grade has no term by which 
it is commonly distinguished. Many speak 
of it as the graded system, but the depart- 
mental system is likewise a graded system. 
For the same reason it cannot be called the 
class system. Seizing upon its chief char- 
acteristic, this work denominates it as the 



INTRODUCTION 9 

single-teacher plan. Some have felt that 
"single" might be taken in the sense "un- 
married," but this use will rarely if ever be 
taken from the context. If "single-teacher 
system" should be accepted as a proper 
terminology, its other meaning will soon be 
lost. "One-teacher system" has been used, 
but this name, too, is somewhat objection- 
able. The latter name may, however, 
prove the better. 

Again, it has been found very difficult 
to select an appropriate title for the teacher 
who has personal charge of a group or class 
of children. The terms "official teacher", 
"official class teacher", "class adviser", 
"class officer", and "class teacher" have 
been variously used. 

Following the usage at Princeton in 
naming one who discharges a similar func- 
tion a "preceptor", this work highly recom- 
mends the employment of that good old 
word. 

So that, when a teacher exercises personal 



10 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

supervision over a class as one responsible 
for all school activities not comprehended 
under the departments, he is a preceptor, 
and when he acts as the teacher of a de- 
partment he is a departmental teacher. 

However, it is quite practical to call the 
above mentioned preceptor a class teacher, 
and little confusion need occur. Whenever 
class teacher is used in this work, it should 
be understood in the above sense. 



CHAPTER II. 
ADVANTAGES 

Before a school system decides to adopt 
any new method, the gains and losses should 
be very carefully weighed. 

Do the gains overbalance the losses? 

Can the advantages be attained, and are 
they worth the effort of reorganization? 

Are they based upon fundamental prin- 
ciples? 

Will they be of permanent value? 

The grounds of one's faith should be 
established before any trial is made, and 
then the effort will be worth while. 

The principal advantages claimed for 
departmental teaching in elementary 
schools are expert teaching, improved dis- 
cipline, improved physical conditions, better 
equipment, enriched curriculum, and unity 
and force in school management. 



12 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

I. Expert Teaching 

Expert teaching is the chief claim of the 
departmental plan. It is evident beyond 
the peradventure, as experience has long 
ago shown, that a teacher can master 
one subject better than many. When he 
is freed from the confusion and discourage- 
ment of preparing properly in fifteen to 
twenty subjects, or parts of subjects, he can 
use his time to prepare in a single study or 
group. He soon becomes highly proficient 
in the science of his branch, as well as in 
the best methods of teaching it. 

So it is important to note that by the 
very organization of the system itself in any 
school the teachers tend to become expert. 

If each teacher becomes, even in a small 
degree, more expert than formerly, then the 
teaching as a whole must improve, and it 
will continue to improve in proportion to 
the advancement made by each teacher. 

The system, then, does not necessarily 



ADVANTAGES 13 

need the specialist upon introduction: it 
develops the specialist. This specialist 
may be only a specialist in a small v^ay, but 
in any case he is capable of doing v^ork far 
superior to that done under the single- 
teacher plan. 

Therefore, the pupil is alv^ays placed 
under the direction of the teacher v^ho is 
best qualified to instruct in any given 
branch. He responds at once to superior 
instruction and profits greatly thereby. 

Indeed, this method is a necessary evolu- 
tion from the natural order of things in 
civilized society. A man only excels by 
learning to do something better than any 
other man can do it. Specialization is the 
basal principle of all our high success in the 
arts and industries. Division of labor is the 
congealed expression of the spirit of the 
age. 

2. Improved Discipline 

Most educators v^ill hesitate to look upon 
departmental teaching as a means of im- 



14 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

proving discipline. The frequent move- 
ment of classes is feared as an additional 
disciplinary burden; but the reasons 
which give departmental teaching this ad- 
vantage grow out of the most natural laws 
of child nature. 

If a mother should shut up her little 
child in a single room with but a few play- 
things, he would very soon become rebel- 
lious and boisterous. The best way to 
quiet him, as all know, is to allow him to 
go into another room among new surround- 
ings, and his nature will more easily re- 
spond to control. Just as simple and as 
natural, as the above illustration indicates, 
is the movement of children from one de- 
partment to another. The exercise itself 
serves as a positive quieting force. A 
normal child seems rapidly to accumulate 
physical energy, which must have an out- 
let in one way or another. If the plan of 
school organization provides easy means 
for the exercise of this energy, it is so far 



ADVANTAGES 1 5 

prevented from exercising itself in per- 
nicious channels. 

Therefore, departmental teaching tends 
to remove one of the most fertile causes of 
ordinary school disturbances. The nor- 
mally active child is provided for. He 
v^ill respond at once to more natural 
treatment. 

The reasons w^hy departmental teaching 
secures better disciplinary conditions may 
be summed up as foUov^s : 

a. The movement from room to room 
is a great and necessary physical relief. 

b. The educative variety of new teach- 
ers, nev^ studies, and new^ rooms tends to 
keep w^holesome thoughts ever present. 

c. The expert teacher is more interesting. 

d. The equipment of a departmental 
room is more effective. 

The necessities of this kind of free move- 
ment demand that the pupil should become 
more and more his ow^n master. Added op- 
portunities for disorder must give added op- 



1 6 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

portunities for self-restraint. The child 
will become more and more a free moral 
agent. This element in discipline is of 
fundamental significance. Very few chil- 
dren are really bad or vicious. Unnatural 
conditions make the best children un- 
tractable. 

In this discussion one can hardly overlook 
that large body of teachers who will still 
look upon the fact that children are obliged 
to move as, in itself, something that dis- 
turbs the good order of the school. It 
matters little to this class of teachers how it 
is accomplished. Such an act to them re- 
mains an unnecessary and gross disturbance. 
It is unavailing to attempt to meet the 
objections of those who hold to the "pin 
drop test." Their ideal is directly opposed 
to that of the teachers who believe that 
children attend school primarily to learn 
important life lessons. The "pin drop 
test" adherents, — and it is surprising how 
many of them are left, — seem to hold that 



ADVANTAGES 1 7 

children go to school chiefly to learn to be 
quiet. Quietness becomes an end in itself. 
They assume that silence is the sine qua 
non of all school activities. This may or 
may not be the case, but it should never be 
an aim of a school, but rather a condition 
to be brought about naturally and inci- 
dentally. 

The chief condition of good discipline is 
found w^hen the good w^ill and interest of 
the child in his w^ork has been preserved 
and developed. If that w^ork involves 
movement, talking, or noise, any or all of 
these manifestations may become not only 
harmless but markedly beneficial. 

3. Improved Physical Conditions 

Although much has been said about the 
necessity of improving the physical de- 
velopment of the elementary school child, 
yet too little has been said or realized about 
the imperative necessity of improving the 
physical conditions of school organization 



l8 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

which act unfavorably upon the health and 
growth of children. 

Children who remain continuously for 
three hours in one room, in a single seat, 
do so at a great physical loss. Ordinary 
class movements are insufficient. The 
physical relaxation and exercise attending 
the movement of classes at frequent in- 
tervals cannot but prove of great benefit 
to the general health and growth of the 
child. 

In this connection, the following extract 
from the writings of Horace Mann may be 
cited : 

"But to make small children sit both dumb and 
motionless for three successive hours, with the excep- 
tion of a brief recess and two short lessons, is an 
infraction of every law which the Creator has im- 
pressed upon both body and mind. There is but one 
motive by which this violence to every prompting of 
nature can be committed, and that is an overwhelming, 
stupefying sense of fear. If the world were offered to 
these children as a reward for this prolonged silence 
and inaction they would spurn it. The deep instinct 



ADVANTAGES 19 

of self-preservation alone is sufficient for the purpose. 
The Irreparable injury of making a child sit straight, 
and silent, and motionless, for three continuous hours 
with only two or three brief respites, cannot be con- 
ceived. Its effect upon the body Is to inflict severe 
pain, to impair health, to check the free circulation in 
the system — all of which leads to dwarfishness — and 
to misdirect the action of the vital organs, which leads 
to deformity. In regard to the Intellect, It suppresses 
the activity of every faculty, and, as It is a universal 
law In regard to them all, that they acquire strength 
by exercise, and lose tone and vigor by inaction, the 
inevitable consequence is, both to diminish the number 
of things they will be competent to do, and to disable 
them from doing this limited number so well as they 
otherwise might. In regard to the temper and morals 
the results are still more deplorable. To command 
a child whose mind Is furnished with no occupation 
to sit for a long time, silent In regard to speech, and 
dead in regard to motion, when every limb and organ 
aches for activity, to require a child to sit down in the 
midst of others whose very presence acts upon his social 
nature as gravitation acts upon his body, and then to 
prohibit all recognition of, or communication with, 
his fellows. Is subjecting him to a temptation to dis- 
obedience which it is alike physically and morally im- 
possible he should resist." 



20 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

The above passage has been inserted here 
because it places such just emphasis upon 
the necessity of this mobility of children 
as an educative means. Although this 
scathing rebuke was uttered many years 
ago, it is surprising to what extent mere 
silence and immobility remain th^ prevail- 
ing ideals in the classrooms of to-day. 

Children will be healthier as the school 
organization itself provides for frequent 
movement. This natural movement is 
much better than the forced exercises of a 
gymnastic drill. It is exercise through 
living, not living to exercise. 

4. Better Equipment 

One of the greatest difficulties encoun- 
tered by the regular grade teacher is to use 
easily, and without undue friction, the es- 
sential apparatus for the most effective 
teaching. For example, the material for 
demonstrating an arithmetic lesson is no 
sooner brought into use than the session 



ADVANTAGES 21 

must end, and be followed by a science 
period. Experiments of any value in 
science require considerable time and room. 
If this lesson is taught properly there w^ill 
hardly be time left to select and mount the 
proper map for a geography recitation 
w^hich foUow^s before the noon recess. As 
is v^ell knov^n, the difficulties suggested 
^bove have proved so great as to prevent 
almost entirely, in the elementary schools, 
the proper acquirement or use of needful 
equipment. Not only is there no time for 
the constant change of apparatus, but there 
is no available space in an ordinary class- 
room for all the apparatus needed for all 
branches. When to these limitations is 
added that of economy, w^hich practically 
prohibits the supply of equipment for all 
subjects in all rooms, then one can form 
some idea of the general meagerness under 
the single-teacher system. But under the 
departmental plan there is a marked im- 
provement. One of the first effects is that 



22 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

each teacher equips his own department. 
The teacher of history is on the lookout for 
maps and charts, the teacher of arithmetic 
is collecting weights, measures, etc., the 
teacher of science, perhaps most zealous of 
all, is sure to gather a great deal of valuable 
material and apparatus to make instruction 
profitable in branches which, for no other 
reason than the limitations of the single- 
teacher system, have long been a mere name 
in the elementary curriculum. 

Then, too, a department demands more 
than apparatus. In science, especially, 
seats good only for listening and writing 
are inadequate. Seats which permit free- 
dom of movement are necessary. Or, 
rather, no seats at all, but tables where chil- 
dren can systematically, and under direc- 
tion find out the simple elementary facts 
of nature. 

Man is not naturally a sedentary being, 
although he is fast becoming such. The . 
child can learn while standing, or even 



ADVANTAGES 23 

while moving about. It is possible to 
conceive of a school where there are no 
desks and seats constructed solely for writ- 
ing and sitting, but where each corner con- 
tains a departmental laboratory to which 
children can go naturally, and move, and 
grow, and ^'learn by doing" the riches of 
each department as all the rest of the world 
acquire facts and skill. 

5. Enrichment of Curriculum, 

It is obvious that one of the best means 
of enriching the elementary course is by 
broadening and intensifying each branch 
through expert teaching. 

A second means of enrichment is by pre- 
serving a proper distribution of time. 

There is a constant tendency in the single- 
teacher method to give much more time 
and energy to one subject than to another. 
In fact some branches have been notoriously 
slighted. No matter what the programme 
calls for, the study the teacher likes best, 



24 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

the one in which he is best prepared, the 
one to which his pupils give best attention, 
or the one the principal magnifies, is the 
study that receives the maximum amount 
of work. But, it is fair to assume, that, if 
a subject is worth putting in the curriculum, 
it should receive its proportionate time. 
The departmental plan insures this proper 
distribution. 

A third means of enrichment has been 
suggested above. A new subject may be 
added to the course and an expert teacher 
may be developed to teach its elements. 
Or, again, a subject that has received little 
or no attention in certain classes, due per- 
haps to the need of a peculiar talent on the 
part of the teacher or teachers, may become 
as well taught as any study in the curri- 
culum. 

For example, a teacher who teaches all 
the subjects of a grade may do well in all 
except one, as music. In this work the 
rlass may utterly fail. Under the depart- 



ADVANTAGES 



25 



mental plan, the class could have passed to 
an expert teacher. 

Suppose, again, that it is desirable to in- 
troduce a new^ subject, as cooking, into the 
course of any school. Under the single- 
teacher plan, its practical teaching w^ould 
be hindered. Under the departmental 
plan, a teacher could be assigned to this 
branch v^ho w^ould soon become an expert. 
As the teaching of each study must be en- 
riched by the departmental plan, so the 
curriculum as a w^hole will increase in 
value. 

6. Unity and Force in School Management 

Certain important gains in school man- 
agement are afforded by departmental 
teaching. 

a. There may be greater unity of w^ork. 
When an entirely new^ class begins w^ork 
with a strange teacher there is bound 
to be a more or less extended period of 
groping about for a true beginning. Re- 



26 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

views and repetitions are manifold. The 
new teacher knows nominally where the 
former teacher left off, but results do not 
tally. Now, under the departmental plan, 
a teacher teaches the same pupils for years. 
He can, therefore, lay out the entire work 
as a complete whole. 

b. Responsibility for results in any study 
may be more directly fixed. Although 
the single teacher of a grade has been 
nominally held responsible for the work of 
that grade, yet he has successfully evaded, 
and properly too, a large part of that 
responsibility. If, for example, the prin- 
cipal criticised the work of a class in 
composition, the teacher would exhibit his 
class compositions, showing most conclu- 
sively, (a) how very defective the class 
was in that work at the beginning of the 
term, and (b) how remarkably the class 
had improved during the same term. 
Each former teacher of this class would 
repeat more or less the same set of proofs. 



ADVANTAGES 27 

Every supervisor know^s that this shirking 
of responsibility is inherent in the single- 
teacher plan. Under the departmental 
plan the composition teacher w^ould have 
no one to place the responsibility upon 
other than himself. 

c. Economy in the employment of teach- 
ers w^ill be gained. In most large cities 
a number of special teachers has been 
employed to teach or assist in the teach- 
ing of certain subjects know^n as "special 
branches." 

This practice has resulted in a large in- 
crease in the cost of running the schools, 
particularly because the special teacher has 
no particular class for w^hich he is held 
responsible. An increase in the number of 
special teachers never decreases the num- 
ber of pupils per teacher. While the 
special teacher has taught, the class teacher 
has not been profitably engaged. This is 
an unnecessary duplication of service. 

Again, the character of the v^ork of this 



28 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

special teacher has often been very faulty, 
due to the fact that his unco5rdinated rela- 
tion in the school faculty brought about 
great obstacles in class management and 
in securing a proper interest. The class 
teacher can always use more eflfective means 
to secure good work than the special teacher. 
Under the departmental plan, the pecu- 
liar organization itself tends to develop 
specialists rapidly, at least specialists of 
sufficient capability for elementary work, 
and thus the need of an extra specialist is 
no longer felt. 

d. The saving of the teacher's time in 
the preparation of lessons, the saving of the 
time for needless reviews, and the economy 
in the use of school equipment have all 
been discussed above. 

e. Pupils may be promoted with less 
friction. Individual promotion, or pro- 
motion at other than the usual times, has 
been one of the rarest occurrences of the 
graded school. The brighter the pupil the 



ADVANTAGES 39: 

more the grade teacher desires to keep 
him. In recommending his promotion the 
teacher has everything to lose and nothing 
to gain; but, under the departmental 
plan, no such influence need w^ork against 
a child, for as soon as the required pro- 
ficience is reached every one of his teachers 
is interested in his advancement. Another 
phase of this problem of promotion gives 
promise of great benefit. Promotion by sub- 
ject is being adopted in many high schools 
of the country, and there is no reason w^hy 
a modification of the system may not be 
w^orked out for the elementary school. It 
has its peculiar difficulties w^ith young 
children, but the principle of differentia- 
ting the individual child and his w^ork is 
the foundation stone of all progress in the 
grammar grades. 



30 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

7. Other Considerations 
The various reports that have been made, 
and the discussions that have been held on 
the subject of departmental teaching have 
emphasized some other phases of this ques- 
tion which are worthy of mention. Most 
of these claims are really manifestations of 
the gains already discussed, but, in a new 
form, they are significant. 

a. Departmental teaching in the ele- 
mentary school will bring about a much 
better articulation with the high school. 
This is not so striking a gain to the pupils 
of the grammar school as a whole as the 
more fundamental arguments which have 
been advanced, but it is, when the school 
system is considered as a whole, unques- 
tionably a very important advantage. 

b. Interest in school work will probably 
be greatly intensified by departmental 
teaching. While this may not always fol- 
low, as interest is a result of the will, still 
the natural means afiforded tend to produce 



ADVANTAGES 



31 



a proper condition for greater interest. The 
variety of teachers, equipment, methods, 
and general conditions, the physical relief 
in changing rooms, the continuity of supe- 
rior teaching, the greater educative free- 
dom, all serve to stimulate the child to his 
best endeavor. Nothing is more deaden- 
ing to a child than to listen to the same 
voice, see the same surroundings, w^itness 
the same methods, and all w^ithin the nar- 
row confines of a single room, and under 
the eye of the same teacher. Children 
become w^eary from the eternal sameness. 

c. Departmental teaching is more at- 
tractive to teachers. This is show^n by the 
tendency to prepare in a specialty in normal 
and training schools. 

d. There is great difficulty in properly 
preparing teachers in the many studies of 
the elementary schools. If teachers could 
be prepared in a group of studies only, 
there w^ould be a greater number of efficient 
teachers. 



32 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

e. In schools for boys and in schools for 
boys and girls where both men and women 
are teaching, the control of both sexes may 
be exercised upon boys and girls alike. 
This will mitigate to some extent the undue 
influence of either sex. 

f. Recreation may be provided for the 
children of large cities who have been de- 
prived of a recess at 10:30 A. M. It has 
been found quite impracticable in most 
large schools to conduct a recess at that 
time. The departmental plan may give 
brief recreative periods at short intervals. 

g. The special talent of a child is likely 
to be developed. The greater stimulation 
of the work in a given department may set 
free a force which will lead to the selection 
of a proper vocation by many children. 

h. Children become more responsible 
for their actions and hence increase more 
rapidly in initiative and independent 
thought. This result, however, depends 
largely upon the manner of adaptation, but 



ADVANTAGES 33 

the strong tendency of the system is to de- 
velop these most desirable qualities in 
children. 

i. Again, children are developed as 
individuals. The departmental plan tends 
to differentiate each child and his work. 
He is, therefore, stimulated to much greater 
effort. If he can be promoted as soon as 
he is prepared to advance to a higher grade, 
certainly no better condition for him than 
this could be brought about in the school 
management. 

j. Favoritism, or v^hat school children 
have for generations, called "partiality" 
w^ill be greatly reduced. Consciously or 
unconsciously many teachers acquire the 
habit of making favorites. This is very 
harmful in a class v^ith but one teacher, but 
v^here pupils go from teacher to teacher 
any evil tendency of this kind will surely be 
so diffused as to become much weakened. 



CHAPTER III. 

OBJECTIONS 

Many objections have been made to de- 
partmental teaching, some from a failure 
to apply it effectively, and some from a 
failure to distinguish it from other new 
methods in elementary schools which may 
have resembled the departmental plan. 

Some prominent educators have raised 
objections to the departments in elementary 
schools, seemingly from the fact that they 
confounded it with the special teacher 
system. 

They have attributed the well-known 
short-comings of that system to the de- 
partmental. 

The special teacher has largely failed, 
not because of any weakness in teaching 
ability, but because he was unable to es- 
tablish any proper personal relation to his 

34 



OBJECTIONS 35 

pupils, and because he had no cooperative 
relation as a member of a particular school 
faculty. He has not failed because he was 
a specialist. Any approved method of 
departmental teaching should employ all 
the functions of a teacher, and then there 
v^ill be no similarity between the special 
teacher system and the departmental. 

There are, moreover, a few difficulties 
that are inherent in the departmental plan. 
These should be studied and overcome, or 
the resulting friction will hinder the free 
movement of the system. 

The principal objections to departmental 
teaching are that the plan tends to promote 
overwork, weak correlation, narrowmind- 
edness of teachers, difficulties in school man- 
agement, and lack of personal control of 
pupils on the part of teachers. The 
remedy is found in an effective method of 
adaptation. 



36 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

I. Too much work may be demanded of 
pupils. 

Certainly the tendency is marked, upon 
the introduction of the departmental plan, 
for each teacher to magnify the value of his 
subject. Each teacher is brought into 
competition with every other teacher in 
order to secure the interest and effort of 
each child. But it should be clearly under- 
stood at the outset that the tendency to 
overwork is great under the single-teacher 
plan. The point of this criticism is that 
the tendency to overwork pupils is greater 
and more difficult to control under the de- 
partments. 

These means of control of school work 
are offered: 

a. Regular conferences of principal and 
teachers should be held, at which a system 
may be perfected for the proper distribu- 
tion and regulation of all home and school 
work. 



OBJECTIONS 37 

b. All home work, as a school require- 
ment, may be abandoned. Many educa- 
tors have long realized that a period of five 
hours a day, for ten months in the year, 
comprises all the work that ought to be de- 
manded of the young children of the ele- 
mentary school. 

c. Home work might be made voluntary. 
An adoption of any of the above recom- 
mendations would, in practice, break the 
entire force of the objection. 

2. Correlation will be made more dif- 
ficult. 

This theme has offered wide opportuni- 
ties for the opponents of departmental 
teaching. 

The six principal phases of correlation 
are therefore herein examined for the pur- 
pose of discussing all the difficulties in- 
volved. 

a. Proper sequence of studies and parts 
of studies. This kind of correlation is 



38 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

positively facilitated by departmental in- 
struction as shown above under ''unity of 
v^ork." 

b. Coordination. The equalizing and 
harmonizing of studies in point of time and 
valuation is greatly helped by departmental 
instruction as shown above. 

c. Correlating subjects with the faculties 
of the mind, as well as 

d. Correlating subjects with the entire 
human environment of the child, are corre- 
lations which are evidently secured as well 
or better by the departmental plan as by the 
single-teacher plan. 

e. Unity of studies. Colonel Francis 
W. Parker based his case against depart- 
mental teaching chiefly upon his belief that 
it would hinder the proper unity of studies. 
His theory of unity demands, primarily, a 
teaching of content studies only, while the 
studies of form or means of expression are 
taught incidentally. 

First, Colonel Parker and his followers 



OBJECTIONS 39 

seem to have confounded the special-teacher 
system, which is practiced in most large 
cities, with departmental education. These 
are not to be confounded, hence many of 
their illustrations are not applicable. 

Second, the unity of content and form, 
along the lines suggested by Colonel Parker 
and others, is a valuable thought in educa- 
tion, but the educational public has not 
accepted to any degree the extreme views 
of Colonel Parker. Therefore, he would 
make departmental teaching antagonize a 
theory rather than a condition. 

Third, departmental instruction in no 
sense hinders the unity of content and form 
to the degree Colonel Parker maintained. 
The departments may be all content sub- 
jects, and each department, as history, may 
be held responsible for the spelling, pen- 
manship, etc., involved in its teaching. In 
this way unity may be actually enhanced. 

f. Cross-correlation or interrelations be- 
tween studies. This phase of correlation is 



40 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

the one most commonly accepted as corre- 
lation by teachers. For instance, the 
science work should not involve division 
of fractions before this topic has been 
taught in arithmetic. This is a matter that 
will not take care of itself, and will prove 
very harmful to the smooth working of a 
departmental plan, if not adjusted. It is, 
however, easy to regulate. 

First, a well-developed course of study 
will take care of all direct correlations. 

Second, all other correlations of any 
value may be adjusted at the conference 
above recommended. 

Third, many magnify, beyond all reason, 
the importance of this kind of correlation. 
There are, of course, natural and direct 
correlations as named above, but many of 
the ''wild-cat schemes" that have been put 
forward in recent years are not worth con- 
sideration. The child will naturally unify 
all the knowledge that he apperceives. 
Let him alone. He is a positive unifying 



OBJECTIONS 41 

organism. Many plans of correlation re- 
mind one of chewing the food for a child. 
Give him his dinner without depriving him 
of the privilege of its mastication. He is 
actually educated by unifying all these so- 
called ^^scrappy" and isolated facts of hu- 
man knowledge. 

3. Teachers may become narrowminded. 

Those who have made much of this point 
seem to have forgotten that the employ- 
ment of a single teacher for a grade is a 
positive form of specialization. The grade 
teacher is confined to a short cross-section 
of the course, while the departmental 
teacher is confined to a longitudinal section. 
So, even from this view, the departmental 
teacher does not suffer. 

But the narrowing tendency does exist 
among all teachers, and it is quite probable 
that the departmental system does not tend 
to minimize some very objectionable phases 
of this influence. 



42 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

In a recent article Dr. Julius Sachs, of 
Columbia University, calls attention to a 
harmful condition of over-specialization 
which has arisen in the high school. His 
position is so sound and applies so directly 
to conditions that exist or conditions which 
must be guarded against in the elementary 
school that his words are here used at some 
length. 

"The pure departmentallst Is a distinct hindrance 
to the construction of a rational curriculum. He is 
apt to refuse to teach anything but his own subject, in 
which case he adds materially to the costliness of the 
school system, or else he will assent, by way of half- 
hearted accommodation, to teach as matters of sec- 
ondary importance to him those subjects that should 
command the very fullest powers and abilities of the 
class teacher." 

And again he writes : 

"I hope I have made it clear that departmental 
organization is as far removed as possible from spe- 
cialization in one subject." 

And still further: 

"The remedy for the all-around teacher of the old 



OBJECTIONS 43 

academy days is not to be found, then, in the one- 
subject teacher, but in the teacher who has definitely 
prepared himself to meet the requirements of at least 
three subjects of the curriculum." 

Over-Specialization may become just as 
damaging to a school organization as un- 
der-specialization. In rushing from the 
teacher who carries a dilute mixture of 
anything you may need, we should not em- 
brace the teacher who offers the poignancy 
of some concentrated extract. The broad- 
minded teacher must be retained alike in 
college, high school, and elementary school. 

The plan proposed in a later chapter of 
this work contemplates securing for the 
schools not only the teacher who can teach 
a department of related studies better than 
any one else, but also the teacher who is 
open-minded and has broad sympathies for 
all attainments of human achievement. 

Holding ever to this breadth of view 
there is still another phase of specialization 
of vocation. 



44 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

We all agree that division of labor pro- 
motes efficiency. Again, division of labor 
has everywhere been characteristic of prog- 
ress in civilization. But, if specializa- 
tion produces narrowness, then civilization 
and narrowness must be concomitant — a 
thesis which is so paradoxical as to admit 
of no defense. The narrowest people are 
those who can do fairly well a thousand 
things. 

It is probable that men are not made 
narrow by the limits of their occupations, 
but by the narrowness of their outlook upon 
life. 

4. School organization may become more 
difficult. 

This difficulty is not inherent in depart- 
mental teaching. It is necessarily greater 
upon the introduction of any new method. 
Should the high schools introduce the sin- 
gle-teacher plan for each grade, it would 
offer many difficulties to those accustomed 
to the departmental plan. 



OBJECTIONS 45 

The work of organization and its con- 
duct depend largely upon the plan adopted. 
Many have used an over-departmentalized 
method which is burdensome as well as in- 
effective. Drawing conclusions from such 
usage, some writers on this subject have laid 
great stress on the necessity of a competent 
principal. A competent principal is neces- 
sary for the management of any large 
school, but where the traditions of a good 
departmental plan are well established, no 
greater executive ability is needed for the 
direction of a departmental organization 
than for any other. In fact, if the great ad- 
vantages of improved teaching, discipline, 
equipment, interest, and physical relief 
mean anything at all, they must mean that, 
when the plan is once under way, the very 
impetus of these gains must actually lessen 
the burden of school management. 



46 



DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 



5. Personal influence and general re- 
sponsibility of the teacher may be lessened. 

That the personal influence for good ex- 
erted by teachers upon children is a very 
potent agency in education, is a fundamen- 
tal thesis in pedagogy; but the depart- 
mental plan, if properly adapted, will 
strengthen rather than weaken this valuable 
personal influence. 

First. The influence of the departmental 
teacher is continuous, extending over the 
entire course of the child, while the single 
teacher controls the child for a brief period 
only, at the end of which his influence is 
entirely ruptured. 

Second. The varying personal influences 
exerted by several teachers are more like 
the influences of life, and afford richer va- 
rieties of character manifestation. 

Third. Under the single-teacher plan, 
many children are not reached by a proper 
personal attraction. The teacher's person- 



OBJECTIONS 47 

ality may, through no fault of his own, posi- 
tively repel some children who are thus 
placed beyond his influence; but, in pass- 
ing through the departments, each pupil is 
more apt to meet the peculiar quality in a 
teacher which is fitted to awaken what is 
best in him. 

Fourth. Thus the rare and more in- 
timate personal relations, which often 
prevail for good, are more common un- 
der a departmental system than under any 
other. 

6. Other objections that have been raised. 

Many other objections to departmental 
teaching have been made, chiefly on ac- 
count of a failure to properly adapt the 
system to elementary school conditions. 
These objections are, for the most part, dis- 
cussed in other portions of this work where 
the topic has been specially developed. It 
has been claimed that discipline will be- 
come lax, that penmanship and spelling will 



48 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

become poor, that English generally will 
suffer, that responsibility will not be defi- 
nitely fixed, that there will be no time for 
study, and that class spirit will not be de- 
veloped. There is no good reason why each 
and all of these objections will not disap- 
pear under the departmental plan, if 
the suggestions made in the succeeding 
chapters are carried out. The proposed 
plan has been perfected in order to over- 
come the possibility of any such harmful 
tendencies. 

Again, it has been held that the "harder 
studies" cannot always be placed in the 
morning hours as under the single-teacher 
plan. This is true, but the constant physical 
relief and variety provided by a depart- 
mental programme doubtless mitigates the 
force of this objection. 

There is another class of objections, 
which have been made, which present only 
the common difficulties of any system of 
school organization. 



OBJECTIONS 49 

It has been stated that incompetent 
teachers, new teachers, and teachers given 
to irregular or unpunctual attendance cause 
trouble. This is true, but such teachers 
are the cause of trouble under any system 
or in any school. If the case of the incom- 
petent teacher is taken it might be stated 
in the following question: Which is the 
better plan, to place a pupil for one year 
or one-half year entirely under the control 
of an inefficient teacher, or to place him un- 
der such a teacher for one period of each 
day? When distributed over a period of 
years, it will be found that each pupil's lost 
time is the same under either plan, but most 
teachers will agree that it is far better to 
have these weak periods scattered rather 
than concentrated upon the entire class dur- 
ing a whole year. 

In this way the weakening influence 
seems to be diluted. Was this not the case 
in your high school and college course? 
The fact is there can be but few inefficient 



50 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

teachers in the departments, because the 
chief advantage of the system itself is that 
it tends to develop its own expert teachers. 



CHAPTER IV. 

PRINCIPLES OF ADAPTATION 

A few of the fundamental principles of 
school organization are presented here for 
discussion and amplification in an attempt 
to present a pedagogical basis for an ideal 
plan of adapting departmental teaching to 
elementary schools. 

The chief functions of the teacher must 
surely find proper expression in any effect- 
ive plan of school or class organization. 
The chief developing centers of the child 
should also be exercised to the best possible 
advantage under such a plan. 

I. The Prime Functions of the Teacher 

2i. Relation to the pupil. 

The most important function of a teacher 
is that which arises from the necessity of 
caring for the individual child. This duty' 
is best fostered when each teacher is largely 

51 



52 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

responsible for a certain group or class of 
children. 

The younger the child the more this 
function of the teacher predominates. The 
history of education shows that this prin- 
ciple has always been observed, as our 
lowest grades have uniformly employed 
teachers in the closest personal relations, 
while our institutions of higher education 
have always shown a tendency to ignore 
entirely the personal relation to the student. 

A notable departure has just been intro- 
duced at Princeton University in the pre- 
ceptorial system. This system distinctly 
recognizes the value of emphasizing the 
personal care and responsibility for each 
and every pupil on the part of the teacher. 
Many high schools have long appreciated 
the force of this function, and in many of 
these schools, each class of students has been 
placed under the personal supervision of a 
certain teacher. 

This personal touch is not only beneficial 



PRINCIPLES OF ADAPTATION 53 

to the child as a dependent who by nature 
needs constant advice and direction, but it 
is an indispensable condition for all effect- 
ive teaching. The first great work of the 
teacher is to gain a strong personal control 
over his pupil. Many teachers have failed 
because this relation had not been firmly 
established. Likewise, many plans of 
teaching have not succeeded for the reason 
that these plans did not provide for the 
development of the personal relation. 

b. Relation to the branches of study. 

Primarily, the child attends school for 
the express purpose of learning something, 
and therefore the teacher's second duty is to 
instruct him in a study or studies. 

The best instruction is sure to result from 
particular preparation in and presentation 
of one subject. Hence, the most effective 
activity of this function is in the selection 
of a special branch by each teacher. 

The higher institutions of learning, of 
course, have developed to their present 



54 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

efficiency through this function alone. 
Many signs indicate that it has been per- 
fected at the expense of other obligations. 

The elementary school, however, has 
always ignored this function until in recent 
years it has been forced to make use of the 
special teacher. This practice simply 
proves the necessity of recognizing that one 
of the greatest duties of any teacher is to 
give the very best possible instruction in the 
subject matter of the curriculum. All must 
agree that this can be accomplished only 
when the teacher becomes a specialist in 
teaching a given subject. 

c. Relation to the school. 

Many teachers fail to recognize the 
great value of the school as an organized 
whole instituted for the benefit of the child. 

The tendency is to ignore this relation as 
much as possible by conceiving of each 
class as a complete whole. In many 
schools teachers do not know how to worK 
together. There is no common forum, 



PRINCIPLES OF ADAPTATION 55 

but rather government by a dictator. 

The best expression of this relation is in 
a thoroughly organized faculty. The 
work of a faculty, as such, is one of the 
most important functions in school work. 
But there is a vast difference between a 
constructive cooperation and a destructive 
dictation. Appearances are many times 
deceptive. 

The unguarded and incapable child is 
placed in school. Who is personally and 
directly responsible for him? His class 
teacher. The child goes to school to learn 
something of value — to study branches of 
knowledge. Who is responsible for the 
teaching of these studies? His depart- 
mental teacher. The child is individually 
a part of the school — a social whole. 
Who is responsible for the school? The 
faculty. The competent teacher is, there- 
fore, one who can control, instruct, and co- 
operate. 



56 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

2. The Threefold Nature of the Child 

a. The intellectual nature. 

Primarily, the school gives chief con- 
sideration to the intellectual development 
of the child. The best educative methods 
are those which best facilitate the mental 
act of learning. Since the fundamental 
principle in mental growth is spontaneous 
mental action, it is evident that the school 
organization should consider how best to 
bring about conditions under which each 
child is given the responsibility for a fitting 
amount of work, together with the most 
favorable circumstance for its accomplish- 
ment. The child must in his turn become 
the worker, and all methods should posi- 
tively foster this independence of thought 
and action. 

b. The moral nature. 

There can be no doubt but that the moral 
nature of the child is best developed when 
lie habitually wills to do his best. The 



PRINCIPLES OF ADAPTATION 57 

first and greatest problem of the school is 
to interest him in right action. Right 
action will be stimulated and will follow 
most naturally those conditions in school 
management where the child is offered the 
greatest opportunity for freedom of choice. 
It is obvious that there is no possibility of 
adequately educating the moral nature 
unless the child be given the opportunity 
to do wrong as well as to do right. 

This principle of freedom has been so 
abundantly tested in American civilization 
that it is difficult to understand why it is 
not accepted universally in the schools. 
Of course its application in the ele- 
mentary school must be limited in com- 
parison with the degree in which it is 
applied to civilized society. The school 
should create an atmosphere in which each 
and every child shall feel that he is being 
led to do right rather than wrong, that he is 
held responsible for the just discharge of 
all his privileges, that high ideals of attain- 



58 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

ment are ever kept before him and within 
his reach, and that his energies find full 
opportunity for self-control as well as for 
the control of others and the direction of 
school activities. 

There are two requisites in school or- 
ganization which determine the extent and 
force of moral education. The teacher, 
his character, personality, and influence, is 
the first determining agency. The young 
child looks to persons in authority for 
ideals of conduct. Their right activity be- 
comes surely the right activity of the 
learner, and the pupil who comes under 
the control of a great and good teacher is 
always influenced for good. 

The second agency is the method of 
school organization. That method is al- 
ways best which allows the greater liberty. 
Of course, this liberty should never become 
absolute license, nor should it approach 
immoderation. 

As liberty of action is granted to adults 



PRINCIPLES OF ADAPTATION 59 

only in a limited degree, so it should be 
granted to children in a less degree, but it is 
important to see that no method fosters 
moral development except that which 
recognizes free will. 

c. The physical nature. 

It is almost trite to say that these three 
natures of the child are a unity, and always 
develop together. The main fact is that 
no one of these natures can far outstrip 
another without all failing to attain their 
proper growth. Each supports the others. 

Somehow, as Herbert Spencer long ago 
pointed out, the school has failed to give 
proper attention to the physical develop- 
ment of children. And further, as he also 
pointed out, what the school has provided 
by way of gymnastics has been just a little 
better than nothing. 

The essential fact to realize is, that the 
school organization — the school program 
— should in its execution automatically 
bring about the needed physical education 



6o DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

while it works out the mental and moral 
education. Living itself provides physical 
activity for adults. 

The carpenter needs no special gymnas- 
tic exercises. The man who works in an 
office has long since abandoned his dumb- 
bells and has taken to all kinds of athletic 
sports, both outdoor and indoor, not be- 
cause they necessitate physical exercise, but 
because they supply the best amusement 
and recreation, the delight in which is the 
common heritage of all mankind. So the 
school should furnish a natural physical 
relief and activity for the child, and that 
system of school organization which facili- 
tates the frequent physical relief and exer- 
cise of the child is best. 



CHAPTER V. 

PLAN OF ADAPTATION 
COMMON SUBJECT PLAN 

The discussion of the advantages of and 
objections to departmental teaching which 
has been presented above is predicated 
largely upon a use of the following plan 
of adaptation. This plan is not only the 
outgrowth of personal experience, but it is 
also deduced from the considerations 
brought forward in the preceding chapter. 
I. Personal Control of Children 

Pupils should be grouped into classes 
and grades largely as under the graded, 
single-teacher system. Each teacher should 
be assigned to a class as its "class teacher" 
or preceptor, and should be held responsi- 
ble for the personal welfare of each and 
every child in his class. He should also 
be held directly responsible for all matters 
in school organization relating to his class 

6i 



62 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

which do not properly fall under the con- 
trol of some departmental teacher. And, 
above all, he should be the teacher who 
exerts the strongest personal influence for 
good over each and every member of his 
class. 

2. Presentation of Studies 

a. A common study — English. Each 
teacher should be a class teacher, and as 
such should have sufficient opportunity al- 
lotted to him to establish a potent influence 
for good and sufficient time to perform the 
many class duties involved in the school 
organization. These duties are many, and 
comprehend such as recording the attend- 
ance and supervising the entrance and exit 
of pupils. 

The most economical way to give this 
time is to have each teacher teach his own 
class in a certain subject taught in common 
by all teachers. 

This subject should be English or one or 
more of its subdivisions. The reason is 



PLAN OF ADAPTATION 63 

apparent: English is a peculiar study in 
the elementary school in that it is funda- 
mentally common to all other studies. 
Teaching cannot be performed in any study 
without the constant use of oral and written 
English; therefore, the forms of pen- 
manship, spelling, capitalization, punctua- 
tion, and grammatical usage must be ever 
under the responsible examination of each 
and every teacher or else great waste will 
result. 

The child should feel that it is just as 
necessary to write well and to spell correctly 
under his history teacher as under his Eng- 
lish teacher. If the responsibility for the 
attainment of proper English usage on the 
part of both teacher and pupil is not placed 
alike upon each teacher in an elementary 
school, pupils will habituate themselves to 
writing well, when under the penmanship 
teacher, and scribbling in all the other de- 
partments. 

Many have held that the importance of 



64 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

English is such that it should be special- 
ized. The importance of English as a 
branch in the elementary school doubtless 
transcends the value of any other branch, 
and that reason alone may indicate why no 
elementary teacher can afford to be any- 
thing else than an elementary specialist in 
English. 

But, English is also peculiar in being the 
one common branch. It is distinct and 
separate on account of these qualities from 
all other branches. No teacher can teach 
a single lesson in any study without using 
it constantly, and for this very necessity he 
is perforce an English teacher whether he 
wills or not. Every child that sees or hears 
his English expression is imbibing his 
strongest ideals and habits of English 
usage. From this, it will be seen, that it is 
positive economy in the grammar school to 
require at least an elementary specializa- 
tion of the English branches on the part of 
every teacher. 



PLAN OF ADAPTATION 65 

It must not be concluded from this, how- 
ever, that certain English branches, as 
grammar or penmanship, may not, at 
times, be profitably departmentalized. 
The gain of this suggestion will depend 
upon the peculiar conditions that exist in a 
given school. As a rule, all, or a part of the 
English branches, should be taught as a 
common study in all elementary schools. 

b. Departmental studies. In addition 
to being a class teacher of one class, each 
teacher also becomes the special teacher of 
a certain study or group of related studies, 
which is known as a department. The 
studies to be taught by a teacher might be, 
for example, English and arithmetic. He 
would teach only his own class or grade in 
the English branches, but he would teach 
arithmetic to all the classes or grades in 
that part of the school which is organized 
into departments. 



66 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

3. Faculty Organization 

The departmental plan, or for that mat- 
ter any plan, will not work successfully 
unless there is a properly organized faculty. 
Cooperation is greater than dictation. 
Where the martinet principal stalks all may 
appear well, but, in reality, desolation 
abounds. 

The school spirit, progress, and work are 
all promoted by a faculty. Any school 
does its best work only when it is organized 
as a united whole, and each teacher per- 
forms his greatest service only when he 
realizes the great value of entering into the 
work of the entire school with the same zest 
that he pursues his departmental work. 

The plan proposed above presupposes 
regular conferences of teachers at which 
various local school questions may be dis- 
cussed and set right. 

The faculty meetings may be extended to 
cover a wide range of professional en- 
deavor and activity. 



PLAN OF ADAPTATION 67 

4. Equipment of Departments 
The equipment of departments will fol- 
low departmental teaching almost as a 
corollary. But this feature is such a strik- 
ing advantage of departmental teaching 
that it should be developed as a necessary 
part of the school equipment and work. 
The special purpose and work of a depart- 
ment should control the selection of all 
furniture, apparatus, and supplies which it 
uses. 

Hence the departmental teacher should 
be permitted to choose the necessary ma- 
terial and equipment for his department. 
It is quite probable, as the plan of depart- 
mental teaching develops, that the com- 
plete equipment of certain departments, as 
cooking, shopwork, and science, might in- 
terfere with the use of the room as an ordi- 
nary classroom for the study of English. 
When such a development takes place the 
room should be made large enough to ac- 
commodate both the full departmental 



68 



DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 



DDDDD 
DDDDD 
DDDDDDn 

DDDnanD 

□DDDDDn 

nnQDDnn 
nnnnnnn 
nnnnnDD 
nnnaann 

DDDDDDD 



m. 



m 



PLAN OF ADAPTATION 69 

equipment and the desks and chairs suitable 
for English work. 

5. Movement of Classes 

The movement of classes from one de- 
partment to another is essential to success. 
The class teacher must feel that after he has 
instructed his class for a time in the common 
subject, he can best serve this class by send- 
ing it to a specially equipped department 
under a special teacher, while he in turn 
gives specialized instruction to another 
class. 

6. The Introductory Organization 

The first steps taken in introducing the 
departmental plan of teaching are very im- 
portant. These suggestions are offered for 
consideration : 

a. Begin with the highest class and 
unite in the first departmental division the 
five, six, or seven highest classes. Never 
take less than three nor more than eight 
classes. Five is probably the ideal number. 

If the school is very large, having twelve 



70 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

to fifteen classes in the last two years, two 
or more departmental divisions may be 
formed, as it were, along side of each other. 
Or, if it is desired to organize the last four 
years of the course departmentally, one de- 
partmental division might even be allowed 
to follow another, but this should not be 
generally permitted. The parallel ar- 
rangement is always preferable where the 
conditions are the same. 

It is, of course, desirable to include all 
the classes of any given year in a depart- 
mental unit, but not always necessary. 
For example, if in a certain school there 
are nine classes in the last two years it 
would be better to organize departmentally 
the highest six or seven classes only than to 
comprehend the nine classes in one division. 
Or, it might be profitable to organize two 
divisions, one division taking in part of the 
sixth year. The point in the course at 
which a division should end is not so im- 
portant as other considerations. 



PLAN OF ADAPTATION 7 1 

b. The selections of departments by 
teachers and their final adjustment and as- 
signment is a matter governed largely by 
individual preferences, aptitude, previous 
education and experience, and general con- 
ditions. After some compromises have 
been made, the principal must make the 
final assignments. 

The following table, showing possible 
arrangements of the departments under a 
different number of teachers, is submitted. 

Departmental Divisions 

Four Teachers 

Teacher A — English, Mathematics 
Teacher B — English, History, Music 
Teacher C — English, Geography, 
Science 
Teacher D — English, Manual Training 
Drawing is included under manual train- 
ing. 

Physical training and penmanship would 



72 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

be taught as common branches under 
English. 

Nature study and hygiene would be 
taught under science; civics and ethics 
under history. 

Five Teachers 

Teacher A — English, Mathematics 
Teacher B — English, History 
Teacher C — English, Geography 
Teacher D — English, Science, Music 
Teacher E — English, Manual Training 

Six Teachers 

Teacher A — English, Mathematics 
Teacher B — English, History 
Teacher C — English, Geography 
Teacher D — English, Science 
Teacher E — English, Manual Training 
Teacher F — English, Music, Physical 
Training 

Seven Teachers 
Teacher A — English, Mathematics 







PLAN OF ADAPTATION 








73 












m 












mo 


^ 


H 


:^ 


H 


^ 


r- 

I 

1 


^ 


H 


:^ 


H 


^ 


z O 
OS 
Us 

Si 


OF 


'ENIN 


G EX 


ERCISES 

1 


OF 


ENlN 


3 EX 


LRCIS 


ES 












T) 












^f^^ 












I 












nim 




Ell 




8A 




< 

CO 




En 


3* 


8B 




com 
• O 












H 


































pDCO 


-'J 


-0[ 


---l 


-^j 


^7 




<I 


<! 


*^ 


-^ 


-^ 


td 


W 


Ed 


td 


w 




> 


;*- 


.?^ 


^ 


^ 






PHV 


•- 


8A 






PHV 


. TR. 


8B 






(X 


QC 


QO 


QO 


QO 


•Cf 


--1 


-1 


-3 


-C! 




^ 


^ 


>^ 


;^ 


>► 


H 

m 
> 
o 


b3 


w 


td 


w 


w 


H 

m 
> 
o 












































En 


?• 


8A 




m 




En 




SB 




m 












DO 












30 




N 


OON 




CD 




N 


[)0 


i\ 




> 




RE 


CI 


.S^ 








ElE 


CE 


ss 








En 


g. 


8A 




I 




En 


?. 


8B 




























QO 


Q^ 


QO 


QO 


QO 


CO 


00 


QO 


c» 


00 


QO 


^o 


fcd 


w 


w 


Sd 


td 


H 

o 

3D 
-< 

1 


K- 


c** 


r* 


>^ 


>- 


s 

5 m 


•C! 


•^ 


<I 


-Q 


-5 


QO 


C/^ 


QO 


QO 


QO 


;^ 


^ 


^ 


;j* 


^ 


C 
CD 


W 


Sd 


td 


W 


w 


OH 










O 












coco 



74 





DEPARTMENTAL 


TEACHING 






















m 














A.M 




^ 


H 


:^ 


H 


^ 




^ 


H 


-^ 


H 


^ 




9: 

iri5 














I 

1 
•D 














OF 


ENIN 


G EX 


ERCISES 


OF 


ENING EX 


ERCl! 


>ES 


























»^ 














I 














3 






En 


g. 


7A 




< 

CO 




Eng. 


7B 




















H 














9-.\S 




























»(^ 




























O 




on 


QO 


QD 


QO 


on 




at) 


QO 


QO 


QO 


QO 




s 




W 


w 


td 


W 


W 




^ 


> 


^ 


^ 


> 




10:35 






























PHY 


. TR. 


7A 






PHY 


. TR. 


7B 






10:50 

1^ 


















































O 




-:i 


-C! 


<I 


•^ 


<i 




on 


on 


QO 


QO 


QO 


n 


r 




^ 


^ 


>- 


^ 


^ 


m 


bd 


bd 


bd 


bd 


bd 


o 


11:30 














> 












n 


cc 














o 














O 

5 






Ell 


3* 


7A 




m 




En 


?• 


7B 






ri: 














J3 












o 






















UQ 


P.M 


























3 


(35 

O 






N 


DO 


N 




D 




N' 


)0 


N 






1: 






IE 


CE 


S^ 






] 


IE 


CE 


SS 






O 

5 






En 


3* 


7A 




> 




En 


^ 


7B 






1:40 














2: 




























c 














r^ 














> 


















-3 


•^ 


<J 


•^3 


•Q 


n 


•^ 


-^ 


--3 


•C! 


•^ 




r 




w 


W 


td 


w 


td 


30 


> 


> 


> 


> 


> 




2:20 














1 





































^ 




00 


QD 


QO 


QO 


Gt) 


30 
> 


^ 


<i 


*^ 


--3 


-OE 




B 




>!- 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


td 


bd 


bd 


bi 


bd 


















Z 












Jl_ 























1 -' 



PLAN OF ADAPTATION 



75 





A.31. 

9: 




9:15 




9:55 
10:35 




10:50 




11:30 


h3 ^ 

II 


12: 


P.M. 

1: 




1:40 




2:20 




3: 



^ 


H 


:^ 


H 


^ 


OF 


'ENIN 


G EX 


ERCIi 


;es 


C5 


O 


O 
•^ 


O 




^ 


^ 


^ 


P^ 


^ 


PI 


HYSIC 


AL T 


^AINI 


vlG 




© 


^ 

H 


« 






hi 




hj 


GC 




N 
ElE 


00 
CE 


N 




© 


tH 


^ 


tH 


^ 


O 


GC 


C 


GC 


C 


w 


rt 


^ 


tt 


te 





^3 


H 


:^ 


H 


^ 




OPENING EXERC1s|eS | 






O 


C5 


o 






w 


W 


^ 


ft 


a 




PI 


lYSIG 


AL T 


RAINl 


NiG 


o 

> 

J2 


^ 


> 


^ 


> 


^ 




^ 


GC 


h3 


GC 


> 




N 
IE 


00 
CI 


N 


1 




© 


t-i 


^ 


•tH 


^ 






o 




b 






O 


GC 


o 


GC 


q^ 



> 

CO 
CO 



76 



DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 






O 



^ 


H 


^ 


H 


^ 


OF 


ENIN 


3 EXi 


LRCIS 


ES 


C5 


O 


^ 

•^ 


O 


© 
•^ 


GC 


^ 


© 


GC 


C5 


PI 


HYSIC 


AL T 


JAINI 


slG 


^ 


w 


^ 


a 


W 


C» 






g 


GC 




N 
ElE 


OO 
CI 


N 




o 


tH 


&o 


IrH 


&i 


;«- 


^ 


t«* 


^ 


^ 




W 




« 





o 

> 

CO 
00 

> 



^ 


H 


:^ 


H 


^ 


OPENING EXERCISES 

1 1 1 1 


© 
^ 


o 




a 


© 

^ 




O 




^ 




p 


^YSlc 


AL T 


?AINI 


vIG 


C5 


GC 


O 


GC 


© 


GC 


2 


GC 


2 


GC 




N 


00 

CE 


N 




© 


t^ 


^ 


t^ 


PS 


p=s 


tf 


^ 


w 


a 


^ 


^ 


k 


k 


^ 



PLAN OF ADAPTATION 77 

Teacher B — English, History 

Teacher C — English, Geography 

Teacher D — English, Science 

Teacher E — English, Manual Training 

Teacher F — English, Music, Grammar 

Teacher G — English, Physical Train- 
ing, Composition 

c. The program should be carefully pre- 
pared so that no conflicts will occur. 

An appropriate one should be given each 
teacher and pupil, and then the system 
should be ready to operate successfully, 
provided the interior organization is made 
to conform to the suggestions of the fol- 
lowing chapter. 

The more pronounced gains secured by 
the above plan over all other plans of de- 
partmental teaching may be stated as 
follows : 

I. The same personal control of children 
is attained as under the single-teacher plan. 
This is accomplished by assigning each 
pupil to the care of a class teacher, and by 



^8 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

providing ample time for the class teacher 
to establish his influence. The physical 
well-being of the child is cared for through 
the development of the first function of the 
teacher. 

2. School management is simplified. 
Whatever advantages follow the single- 
teacher plan are preserved. The entrance 
and exit of pupils, the disposal of clothing, 
the keeping of class records, the distribu- 
tion and control of all supplies, can all be 
managed directly through the class teacher. 
The making of a program is greatly sim- 
plified. The time for the departments is 
first assigned, then the remaining time is 
taken by each class teacher for English. 

3. The plan is easily adaptable to all 
ordinary school conditions. The above 
plan is much more flexible than any other. 
It can be introduced as readily in a small 
school as in a large school. 

Even in a small school where there are 
two grades to each teacher it can be em- 



PLAN OF ADAPTATION 79 

ployed with great advantage. The method 
of application is to have the two grades 
move at the same time, and in each depart- 
ment one grade recites while the other 
studies as in the regular classroom. 



8o 



DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 



5 

n 
" O 

l-H p 

3 
3* 
Q 









COM 






M O IN 






Xx 



5\~§\^?^ 






B 



8^1 



f.J3S 






•^•\\^- 



\\\^>^-^\X\ 



I S 



H 



EJECT 



^^\ 









^^ 



N\^\\\^ 






K^xN 






COHIMON SUBJECT 
N G L I S II 



E 



C 31 31 N SI 



N L 






^^^ 








C E 



N 



S^^ 









«1 



EJECT 



1 S 



ir^^ 



H 



» 



\n" 



^ 






CHAPTER VI. 
DETAILS OF ADAPTATION 

In discussing the details of departmental 
teaching the writer has drawn freely upon 
the results of four questionnaires which 
have been placed at his disposal. 

One was conducted by Dr. Edward W. 
Stitt, District Superintendent of Districts 
8 and 12, New York, in 1903; two were 
conducted by the Board of Superintendents 
of New York in 1903 and 1905, and an- 
other was conducted by the Schoolmen of 
New York in October, 1905. 

I. Assignment of Studies 

The principle that the teacher should 
select his own specialty should prevail as 
far as possible. Compromises, however, 
must often be made. 



81 



82 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

2. Program 

The time before and after all recesses, 
entrances, and dismissals should be given 
to the class teacher. This secures proper 
opportunity for the recording of attend- 
ance, care of clothing and books, and is the 
best time to use for the common study. 
The departmental time will take up the 
middle periods. 

This arangement may be graphically 
shown: see plate VI. 

3. Coordination of Departments 

It is very important that the special work 
of each teacher be as nearly equal to that 
of every other as possible. 

Content studies may be placed in groups 
so that each group shall embrace related 
studies. 

It will be found very difficult to equalize 
the time of each department exactly ac- 
cording to the requirements of most courses 
of study. But, the best courses of study 



DETAILS OF ADAPTATION 83 

leave a margin of "unassigned time" which 
assists to balance the periods within the re- 
quirements. 

Exact time limits are immaterial and 
should never be insisted upon in the execu- 
tion of a school program, but relative 
time periods are important. Each study- 
should be given its proportionate time. 
When the plan of proportionate equaliza- 
tion of departments has been carried out, 
it will be found to facilitate greatly the 
making of a program. 

4. Length of Periods 

The preferable length of the period is 
forty minutes. However, it is often de- 
sirable to have some periods, as manual 
training, longer, and some, as music, 
shorter. A variation of five or ten minutes 
in the length of a period to suit particular 
conditions is not material. 

5. Movement of Classes 

The movement of classes between periods 



84 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

should take from three to five minutes. 
Some speak of this time as lost, but the 
great necessity of physical relief ought to 
convince one that an intermission of five 
minutes between periods for free move- 
ment between departments is both possible 
and profitable. This movement between 
classrooms may be used as a brief recreative 
recess, and in modern schools, where the 
halls are wide enough, it will be found pos- 
sible to allow some free play during this 
breathing spell. 

On account of the varying heights of 
seats and desks, children should be asked to 
form lines according to size, /. e,, the small- 
est pupil first. The seating of most class- 
rooms is graduated from the lowest desks 
in front to the highest desks in the rear. 

Therefore, if a class always comes in and 
goes out of a room arranged in this same or- 
der, each pupil will be in his own properly 
adjusted seat at each recitation. 

If conditions are such that freer move- 



DETAILS OF ADAPTATION 85 

ment can be permitted, each pupil may 
take such seat in each room as has been as- 
signed him. If each pupil is required to 
sit in the same seat at every appearance in a 
given department it will greatly assist in 
noting attendance. The number of vacant 
seats shows the number of absentees. 

In schools containing boys and girls, care 
should be taken to form the girls in lines 
separated from the lines of the boys. The 
halls are usually best supervised by requir- 
ing each teacher to stand in his classroom 
door during change of classes. 

6. Study 

Children in the elementary school are in 
great need of a proper amount of time for 
independent preparation of lessons. It is 
important to see that five hours is about all 
the time that a child should be held to his 
daily school work. Therefore, a large 
part of this time should be given for inde- 
pendent study. The full school time pre- 



86 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

scribed for a subject should be at the 
disposal of the departmental teacher so 
that he may use it for study or recitation. 
Therefore, each departmental teacher 
should control all the time assigned to his 
department. The time for study is what- 
ever time the teacher may think best to 
assign for such an exercise. 

The "omnibus study period" threatens to 
work great harm to the principle of school 
study, and is, therefore, not recommended as 
a part of a departmental school program. 

Every study period should be set apart 
for preparation in a certain study or studies, 
and the work done during this period must 
be supervised and examined by the teacher 
of the appropriate department. Every 
child should feel that 'he must render as 
strict an account of the use of his time dur- 
ing a study period as during any other 
period. Study to be done at home should 
be carefully controlled by the faculty to the 
end that overwork may not take place. 



DETAILS OF ADAPTATION 87 

7. Discipline 

In general, the teacher who is in imme- 
diate charge of a class should be responsible 
for its conduct. The responsibility for the 
discipline between periods must be placed 
by some faculty plan, as conditions vary 
greatly. 

Acts of disorder may be profitably re- 
ported to a class teacher so that he may 
support the departmental teacher by means 
of his own class organization, but the 
teacher in immediate charge should be 
primarily responsible. 

8. Attendance 

The attendance of a class should be noted 
and recorded in the usual way. The class 
teacher should be held responsible for the 
good attendance of his class and should use 
all proper means to perfect it. The at- 
tendance of pupils in each department is 
easily kept by the class president or secre- 
tary who enters the record in a book which 



88 



DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 



^ 

























1 


2h 




"^ 




















































GC 
























iT 




tH 
























I> 
























I2 




1-H 
























^ 



























































tH 




























ffO 




























rH 
























(M 




























^H 
























i-H 


























>> 


•pH 



















































§ 


1—1 




















































(^ 





























e 




























§ 


























VI 


Cb 


CO 
























J 

6 


1 


























10 










( 


p 











T) 


=q 


6 


ci, 




s 




























































■^ 
















"1 


si) 


6 


^ 


CO 














- 




'^ 


^ 


d> 


^ 


(M 
















-i 


^ 


6 


^ 
























sr 


























0? 


A 


























« 

c 


^ 


























OJ 


rrt 






t» 





















Tffl 




] 




t 

i 1 




SS5 




CQ 




1 


1 






1 


• 

to. 

"El 

g 




a 


I p:; 




tS: 


^ 


^^ 


^ 


ti^ 


^ 




S 


pH 


^ 


g 



C^ 



<! > 



DETAILS OF ADAPTATION 



89 



^^ 






















































'^ 


















>^' 


















5^ 












































IS 










fiq 


g 






£ 








'C 


i 


Ci3 






j 










1 
2 




1 


If 




1 


P 








1 








13 










ti^ 










g? 


1 








!§ 








^^ 




^^ 




















B 




P^ 


'I 


pq 





Cj 




























&c 










® 








9^ 












cc 








^ 


% 










s^ 








® 


d 










5 






.2h 


1 


Q 










a 




00 


^ 


1 


1 











1 




« 
1 


• 


-5 


Eh 


1 


© 


4^ 

1 




1 






1 


1 


Is 

S3 


^ 

a 


p^ 


< 


S 




s 


W 


i5 


S 



p< 



t3 
C 






> 

G 



90 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

should be signed by each departmental 
teacher. Any pupil's tardiness or absence 
from the room may be recorded in the same 
way. Each day the class teacher attends to 
these reports and other such reports as it 
may be found best. 

9. Correlation 

Correlation is a proper subject for 
faculty conference. The curriculum will 
provide for most correlations, but those 
correlations which can be taken up to ad- 
vantage, as points of contact between de- 
partments, are easily adjusted as the work' 
progresses. 

10. Absent Teachers 

Of course the effectiveness of the work 
left by the absent teacher depends entirely 
upon the ability of the substitute as it does 
under any system. In some schools, able 
teachers from lower grades have acted as 
^'understudies"* so that the substitute could 
take up the easier work of a lower grade. 



DETAILS OF ADAPTATION 



91 







1 

> 
< 


















1 



































ei 


























< 


















































' 




























•-5 
























< 



-M 




























i. 

1 

1 

02 































i 

























1 


1 


























© 

Ci 

I 

© 





.a 




i 


B 

.22 


Eh 

1 


^ 
u 

H 


• 




1 

< 


1 


4^ 

5 





o 

o •"* 

^ PL, 



92 



DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 



pq 



X 






s 



m 



DETAILS OF ADAPTATION 93 

II. Records and Reports 

The record of each pupil's work should 
be recorded as it is performed. It should 
be made in each subject and given by the 
teacher of that subject. Records should 
always be proportionate to educational 
value. Reports may be collected by the 
class teacher and made to supervisors and 
parents as recorded. It is highly essential 
that the record of individual pupils be re- 
corded and reported to parents and super- 
visors of departments, and exactly as given 
in those departments. 

12. Spelling and Penmanship 

Every departmental teacher, as he is also 
an English teacher, should be very watch- 
ful of and largely responsible for all the 
spelling and penmanship done in his de- 
partment. This subject is a proper one for 
conference. 

It may be helpful to suggest one means 
of perfecting the use of written English 



94 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

throughout the departments. Fifteen per 
cent, of every piece of written work might 
be agreed upon as its English valuation. 
One per cent, might be deducted for each 
misspelled word, one per cent, for each 
error in capitalization or punctuation, five 
per cent, or more for poor penmanship and 
other errors. All deductions are to be 
made from the mark attained in the given 
subject on the paper being considered up 
to the maximum of fifteen per cent. This 
plan could be worked without any maxi- 
mum. Also, to a limited extent, papers may 
be rewritten for the sake of English form. 

13. Text-books and Supplies 

As far as possible each departmental 
teacher should have charge of the text- 
books and supplies which belong to his 
work. 

14. Fire Drills and Regular Dismissals 

At the sound of the fire alarm each 
teacher should take charge of the class 



DETAILS OF ADAPTATION 95 

under his immediate control, and proceed 
as directed for classes in his room. Class 
teachers should receive and dismiss their 
classes at regular entrances and dismissals. 

15. Detention 

If children are detained after school 
hours difficulty will arise from the fact that 
two or three teachers will require the same 
pupils at the same time. This conflict may 
be easily overcome by a plan which pro- 
vides that each department or teacher may 
detain only for a certain day of each week. 
Thus, the teacher of history may be given 
the first right to detain delinquent pupils 
on Monday. 

16. Signals 

The best plan for signals is doubtless to 
ring the call-bell twice to give notice of the 
end of the period. Each teacher knows 
then that he has a certain period (three to 
five minutes) in which to prepare his class 
for the passage to another room. At the 



96 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

end of this brief period the call-bell should 
ring once and all classes may march in 
order to the assigned room. 

17. Location of Departments 

The classrooms used by any departmental 
division should be as near together as pos- 
sible, as the movement of classes is liable to 
disturb pupils not in the departmental plan. 

18. Management of School Implements 

The distribution, collection, and proper 
care of pencils, pens, rulers, and other arti- 
cles is one of the most unsatisfactorily con- 
ducted exercises in the public schools. A 
large amount of time and money is wasted 
in the confusion of the process and the loss 
of material. A still greater waste is the 
loss to education in that so many teachers 
are quite willing to work without proper 
implements or with none rather than as- 
sume the responsibility of their care. Ex- 
ercises that should thus be enriched by use- 



DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 
Plate XI 




Fully extended showing how each article is held in place 




Closed ready for carrying 




On desk ready for use 
Pupil's Box for holding Pencils and other Articles 



DETAILS OF ADAPTATION 97 

ful tools are reduced to little more than a 
barren lecture. 

A child should be given the essential 
tools for all his lessons, and held responsible 
for their condition. He should use the 
same implements at all times, and, there- 
fore, they must be often inspected. When a 
pupil leaves his classroom to enter other 
departmental rooms, he should take with 
him such books as he needs together with 
his regular school implements, which may 
be carried in a tin box suitably arranged 
for that purpose. In this way all delay 
in giving out and taking up m.aterial in 
each department will be avoided. 



CHAPTER VII. 
MISTAKES IN ADAPTATION 

The view of departmental teaching 
hereinbefore presented has been the posi- 
tive form. If there is general agreement 
as to the value of the plan presented, then 
mistakes in adaptation and use will be 
found in the failure to conform to its gen- 
eral requirements. It is doubtless profita- 
ble, however, to call attention to the more 
common errors which are customarily 
made. 

Many principals introduce a system of 
teaching which they call departmental that 
has little or no relation to any approved 
method. They actually invite disaster by 
their own errors. 

Another class of principals are conduct- 
ing departmental teaching, as it were, "by 
main strength." It is applied in such a 

way that the ordinary changing conditions 

98 



MISTAKES IN ADAPTATION 99 

of the school affect it too much. New 
school terms, new teachers, absences, and 
physical conditions entail unwonted and 
wasteful effort. Usually this condition 
follows an over-adaptation of the plan. 

A large number of principals, therefore, 
hesitate to undertake a plan which seems to 
be so easily interrupted. They fortify their 
position by citing particular conditions in 
their schools which appear to them insur- 
mountable. But the point to be made is 
that if departmental teaching is funda- 
mentally more valuable than the single- 
teacher plan, then it is valuable because, by 
its introduction, conditions are positively 
bettered. If, then, the general conditions 
of any school are undesirable, the proper 
introduction of the departmental plan 
should improve these conditions. 

There may be conditions in a given 
school which hinder the introduction of 
departmental teaching, but such instances 
are extremely rare. The conditions most 



lOO DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

commonly offered as detrimental to depart- 
mental teaching are really only those con- 
ditions which hinder the wrong adaptation 
of departmental teaching. The plan of 
departmental teaching which experience 
has evolved as best is clearly one which 
adapts itself rapidly, and greatly improves 
conditions and results in all schools, large 
and small. 

The following errors in adaptation are 
selected for discussion as most common. 

I. All studies have been department- 
alized. 

This practice is directly opposed to the 
more flexible plan offered above. It is 
truly over-departmentalization. It ignores 
largely the first function of the teacher by 
providing no time for its exercise. The 
ordinary physical changes involved in 
school management become too burden- 
some with young children. Penmanship, 
spelling, entrances, dismissals, deten- 
tions, care of books, clothing and supplies 



MISTAKES IN ADAPTATION loi 

all become sources of endless difficulty. 

2. Children have remained in the same 
classroom during the entire day. 

It is difficult to understand how this error 
could be made in view of the added inter- 
est, the physical relief, the better equip- 
ment, and other gains made possible by the 
passing of pupils from one departmental 
room to another. 

The teacher, who is then compelled to go 
from room to room, is either obliged to do 
without equipment altogether or to carry 
it for instantaneous adjustment. This is 
one of the greatest objections to the special 
teacher plan. Imagine a science teacher 
carrying apparatus, or a geography teacher 
carrying maps and globes from room to 
room! The example of the high schools in 
this regard is ever present to temper and 
guide the elementary school. 

3. Music and drawing have been as- 
signed to the class teacher. 

Among the chief advantages of depart- 



102 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

mental instruction are the gains of expert 
teaching and the enrichment of the course. 
Music and drawing have suffered long for 
want of expert instruction, and should be 
the last studies to be left to the class teacher 
unless, of course, that teacher is a specialist. 

4. Class teachers have been held re- 
sponsible for the discipline of their classes 
at all times. 

This error is palpable, and one could 
hardly imagine a college or high school 
pursuing such a scheme. 

The class teacher, however, may exert a 
great influence for good behavior over each 
and every member of his class, and, indi- 
rectly, his class organization should sup- 
port the good discipline of his class at all 
times. 

5. Teachers have been assigned to studies 
in combinations unnecessarily disassociated. 
There is evidently great loss of time and 
strength in preparing for expert teaching 
in unrelated studies. This refers partic- 



MISTAKES IN ADAPTATION 103 

ularly to the waste which follows the prac- 
tice of making up a program, so that 
"odds and ends", as it were, are left over. 
For example, the science teacher must teach 
a period of grammar and another of history; 
the history teacher must take a period of 
arithmetic and another of composition. 
Every means should be taken to avoid this 
necessity. One of the advantages of the 
above plan of adaptation is that such con- 
tingencies are minimized, if not wholly 
avoided. 

Yet again, in no sense should the depart- 
mental teacher become too narrow by an 
undue specialization. 

6, No head of department has been 
named where two or more teachers are 
teaching the same subject. In large 
schools two or three teachers are often 
teaching history or arithmetic. Much is 
gained by naming one as a responsible head. 

7. The study period has been ineifec- 
tually managed. 



I04 



DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 



Some sort of effort by way of prepara- 
tion should be made by each pupil, un- 
assisted and unhindered, before each formal 
recitation. The study period is very im- 
portant and should, therefore, be placed at 
the beginning of each session, and, if this is 
insufficient, a part of each recitation period 
should be taken. The practice of placing 
the study period late in the day is ob- 
jectionable, because the incentive or need 
of learning a lesson is too remote to over- 
come the fatigue of children who have 
been in school all day. 

8. Promotion marks have not been pro- 
portionately coordinated. 

The amount of time given a subject by 
the program should be paramount in de- 
termining the value of each ''A," ^^B," or 
^'C" of a given subject. The '^B" of music 
(60 minutes) should not count the same 
towards promotion as the '^B" of English 
(360 minutes). 

9. There has been too much giving of 



MISTAKES IN ADAPTATION 105 

instruction — not enough individual work 
on the part of the pupils. 

There is no valid reason why this per- 
nicious tendency should be carried over 
from the single-teacher plan to the de- 
partmental. 

10. Too many teachers have taken part 
in a single departmental unit. 

In many schools it has been the practice 
to unite all the teachers of the last two years 
into one departmental division regardless 
of the number. Surely, it needs no argu- 
ment to prove the absurdity of sending a 
child on a confusing round of ten or twelve 
teachers. Such a practice is unknown in 
high schools or colleges. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

LIMITATIONS 

Departmental teaching from the nature 
of the system can be employed only in 
schools which fulfil certain conditions. 

1. Size of School 

Departmental teaching may be used suc- 
cessfully in any school where there is at 
least one teacher for each year of the course. 
This would mean that the school of mini- 
mum size would be one which contained at 
least eight teachers in the entire elementary 
course. 

There is no maximum size for the school 
containing departments, because, in very 
large schools, such as exist in some cities, 
two or more departmental units might be 
organized. Proper relations between these 
units may be easily established. 

2. Size of Class and Room 

The size of class is not material so long 

io6 



LIMITATIONS 



107 



as the largest class can be accommodated in 
any room. 

Likewise each and every room should be 
large enough to seat each class. The size 
of classes may vary to any extent without 
affecting the system, providing the above 
requirements are met. 

3. Part of the Course to be Depart- 
mentalized. 

The work of departmentalizing should 
begin with the last year, and it may include 
the pupils of each lower year down to the 
fourth. The line of departure between the 
single-teacher and departmental systems 
may be drawn at any time in the last four 
years that the departmental plan seems 
about to work itself out as a complete whole. 
The particular point of cleavage is imma- 
terial. It should, however, be kept in mind 
that a child is ready to enter a modified 
system of departmental teaching as soon as 
he has mastered the mechanical parts of 



I08 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

reading, writing, and arithmetic. There- 
fore, the departmental plan can be applied 
to any or all of the last four years, always 
beginning with the last year. 

4. Number of Teachers 

In a departmental unit, there should not 
be over eight teachers as a maximum, nor 
less than three teachers as a minimum. It 
is quite evident that there can be little de- 
partmentalization or expert teaching with 
less than three teachers, but three teachers 
may work effectively under such a plan. 

To allow a child to meet more than seven 
or eight teachers is bewildering, and carries 
specialization entirely too far. The ele- 
mentary course should seldom be broken 
up into so many highly personalized parts. 

The preferable number of teachers to 
employ in any departmental unit is four or 
five. This number will usually suffice to 
accomplish the work, and provide all the 
profitable advantages of expert instruction. 



CHAPTER IX. 

OTHER PLANS OF DEPARTMENTAL 
TEACHING 

r. The Study-Hall Method 

The study-hall plan is the most common 
method of using departmental teaching in 
high schools, and it has been employed in 
many elementary schools for some years. 
The plan is conducted to the best advantage 
when all the pupils of a school or depart- 
mental unit have desks in one large hall. 
The departmental rooms in which all teach- 
ing is done are situated about the study 
hall, and upon signals at the beginning and 
end of each period, the classes move to and 
from the study hall, which is reserved 
solely for the preparation of lessons. 

The chief advantages of this plan are: 

a. The departmental rooms may be 

more specially constructed and equipped 
109 



no DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

into practical working laboratories than 
under other systems. 

b. Economy of time is gained in being 
able to examine, control, and direct an en- 
tire departmental division at one time and 
by one teacher. 

The disadvantages of this plan are: 

a. It destroys the possibility of a proper 
personal control of young children. 

b. The study hall and its management 
present great and peculiar difficulties. 
The assemblage of large numbers in a hall 
seems to hinder the maintenance of a proper 
repose for study. The teacher in charge 
must discharge a peculiar function which 
seems separate from the common duties 
of a teacher, and which can be satisfactorily 
performed by very few. If a special direc- 
tor of the study hall should be employed, 
he would be out of touch with the other 
teachers, and his salary would entail addi- 
tional expense. 

c. This plan necessitates a special and 



OTHER PLANS OF TEACHING m 

expensive construction of the school build- 
ing on account of the extra seating required. 

2. All Teaching under Specialists 

In many large schools it has been possible 
to use a plan by which each study was as- 
signed to a particular teacher, who soon be- 
came, in an elementary sense, the special 
teacher of that subject. The children 
never recite with their class teacher in any 
common study, and in some instances do not 
meet with their class teacher in any study. 

The gain of this plan is great specializa- 
tion of teaching. 

The losses are difficulty in school man- 
agement, and in personal control of and 
responsibility for general results. Chil- 
dren meet too many different teachers dur- 
ing the week for effective work. 

3. The Peripatetic Method 

There can be no impropriety in terming 
the plan, under which the teachers go from 
classroom to classroom to give instruction 
in their specialty, according to the method 



112 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

of the celebrated Greek'. By this method 
each class remains in its own classroom all 
day. This plan follows the practice of the 
special teacher system, and entails most of 
its faults, but it is by many believed to main- 
tain a condition of better discipline. 

It is sometimes tried in schools where 
the physical conditions of rooms and halls 
make undesirable the plan of frequent 
movement of classes composed of boys and 
girls. Where such conditions exist, it is 
questionable whether departmental teach- 
ing should be tried at all. 

4. A Departmental Unit for each Year 

In some large schools a departmental 
division has been organized in the eighth 
year and one in the seventh. Others have 
adopted this plan by beginning in the 
eighth year and completing the division in 
the seventh or lower and then beginning 
where the first division ended to form an- 
other in the sixth and fifth. 

The gains of this plan are that: first, it 



OTHER PLANS OF TEACHING 113 

keeps the number of teachers in a division 
at the most effective number; second, it pro- 
motes more intensive specialization by less- 
ening the amount of subject matter to be 
covered by each teacher. 

However, there is a great loss in con- 
tinuity of teaching one subject and respon- 
sibility for results in that subject, due to 
the fact that two or more teachers follow 
one another in specializing the same sub- 
ject in the same school. The first form 
of the fourth plan is very objectionable 
because, if the point of cleavage between 
divisions is made at the end of each year, 
great difficulty will be found in making a 
program and providing the proper num- 
ber of teachers, as the number of pupils 
varies with each term. 

Modifications of the above plans have 
been tried, but the plan that employs a com- 
mon study is surely best adapted to all the 
present conditions of public schools. 



CHAPTER X. 

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 

1. Optional Introduction 

Until departmental teaching is popularly 
accepted, it should be introduced in each 
school at the option of the principal and 
teachers. This will mitigate the effect of 
a reaction, which is bound to set in, as well 
as enhance the genuine worth of the new 
plan of teaching. Departmental teaching 
in the elementary school is so radical a de- 
parture from the single-teacher plan that 
its success must always presuppose an en- 
thusiastic faculty, and the adoption of an 
effective plan. 

2. Preparation of Teachers 

The preparation of teachers for depart- 
mental teaching will become a problem by 
itself. 

The striking peculiarity of the plan, how- 
ever, is that the very organization of de- 
114 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 115 

partments in a school tends to the rapid 
development of expert teachers, that is, 
teachers who are at least elementary special- 
ists. So that, for the most part, the system 
itself becomes its own teachers' training 
school. 

But how will the departmental method 
affect the teachers' training and normal 
schools? 

For a long time students in these schools 
have shown a marked tendency to prepare 
themselves only in some specialty. This 
has promoted the training of high school 
teachers more than elernentary school 
teachers. The very greatest difficulty has 
been to prepare a sufficient number of the 
old fashioned all-around teachers for the 
elementary schools. Thus there is now and 
will be a great dearth of properly prepared 
elementary teachers. Then, too, the de- 
mands of the elementary school have in- 
creased greatly. A few years ago the 
teacher who could teach a smattering of 



Ii6 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, 
history and music sufficed for most elemen- 
tary schools ; now, he must be able to teach 
according to approved methods, the Eng- 
lish branches, arithmetic, algebra, geome- 
try, geography, nature study, history, civics, 
ethics, science, physiology, hygiene, phys- 
ical training, drawing, construction, cook- 
ing, sewing, and music. 

If the above list were in the least over- 
drawn, it might become a source of amuse- 
ment, but it is too tragically true. Teach- 
ers cannot be prepared to teach properly 
the meager elements of one-half of this cur- 
riculum. Therefore, the normal school 
must sooner or later prepare teachers for 
the elementary school only in the pedagogic 
branches, the English branches, and a de- 
partmental branch. 

3. Examination of Teachers 

Those directing the examination and 
selection of teachers under a departmental 
system must sooner or later recognize that 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 117 

teachers cannot be examined critically in all 
the branches which are now presented in 
the elementary curriculum. A teacher can 
properly prepare only to qualify in peda- 
gogy, English, and a special subject. 

The academic part of an entrance exam- 
ination should then consist of no more than 
the above divisions comprehend. 

4. Comparative Results 

The determination of the comparative 
results of the single-teacher and depart- 
mental methods must evidently be broadly 
conducted or very little of value will be 
shown. 

To examine a number of schools, which 
use both methods, in two or three subjects 
of the curriculum only is surely worthless 
as a true basis of comparative valuation. 
Or, to examine a school before the introduc- 
tion of departmental teaching, and then 
afterward to reexamine in two or three sub- 
jects only is quite as valueless as a compar- 
ative test. 



Il8 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

One of the greatest advantages of depart- 
mental teaching is that it enriches the course 
of study by giving to each branch its pro- 
portionate time under an expert instructor. 

Now, it is one of the most patent deficien- 
cies of the elementary school that, regard- 
less of the course and the program, certain 
studies only are taught and other studies are 
slighted. 

It is probably no exaggeration to state 
that in many classes where arithmetic was 
supposed to be taught for forty minutes per 
day, that it was taught for two hours, and 
those hours, the best of the morning. So, 
to examine schools using both methods in 
arithmetic and grammar and to expect to 
draw therefrom comparative results is idle. 
Any test to be of value must be compre- 
hensive. 

5. Units of Work 

The value of recognizing the work that 
a child does, rather than the time that he 
spends in school, is of the greatest impor- 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ng 

tance. The graded school of our great 
cities is acknowledged to be a form of ''mass 
education" in its purest form. All agree 
that children are promoted when unfit, and 
held back when ready for advancement. 
Whole classes, possessing the most striking 
individual variation in attainment, move 
forward in order that a higher grade and 
classroom may be filled. The only com- 
mon element among these children is that 
of the time spent in school. From the nec- 
essities of the graded system, under the 
single-teacher plan, the time unit must con- 
tinue to be the paramount factor in require- 
ments for promotion. Departmental teach- 
ing gives an opportunity to recognize the 
units of work. There lie before me the 
catalogues of a prominent university and a 
high school, in which the students' names 
are arranged alphabetically, and after each 
name there is placed the earned credit of 
work. When the requisite number of 
''work-units" have been credited, the stu- 



I20 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

dent has standing in the next higher grade. 
The best promise, then, of departmental 
education is in the fact that it makes pos- 
sible the division into "work-units" of the 
course in each department, and the credit- 
ing of each pupil only upon his mastery of 
a "work-unit." 

Departmental teaching ought to make 
the idea prevail that, when a child has ac- 
complished a certain unit of work, he 
should have credit for the same and should 
not be asked to repeat it. He should be 
made to feel that school is not the mere 
service of time, but a service of definite ac- 
complishment. 

6. Laboratory Work 

The system which emphasizes a plan, 
where each child can go into a department, 
and seek information and do work as an 
individual, is surest to succeed. It is true 
that a child cannot successfully carry out 
this plan to the same extent that a college 
student can, but, within the limits of child- 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 121 

ish application, he can learn most rapidly 
by performing set tasks in a well equipped 
room. This kind of work is but a part of 
his school routine, yet it is an essential part, 
and to neglect to provide it for him is to 
fail to provide the most natural and neces- 
sary means of development. 

7. Individual Education. 

Through the placing of greater re- 
sponsibility upon each child, and the 
increasing of his opportunities for self- 
restraint and self-direction, under the 
departmental plan, one of the most funda- 
mentally educative processes is emphasized. 
The pupil, while acting with others, learns 
to act under direction of his own free voli- 
tion. Real individual education is made 
possible. This is directly opposed to the 
''mothering" plan which has been fostered 
by the single-teacher system and defended 
by many educators. This "mothering" has 
led to a most pernicious system of over- 
helpfulness in the elementary school. The 

8 



122 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

child has been deprived of proper oppor- 
tunities for initiative, invention, and self- 
mastery. 

All kinds of pretty things have been said 
about the motherly teacher. This senti- 
mental tendency has fostered the so-called 
''soft" education. The school is no place 
for ''mothering;" it should be a place for 
work. If a child is so young as to need a 
mother send him home. There is not, or 
should not, be any substitute for a real 
mother. Not that teachers should not be 
kind, gentle, and wisely helpful, but a 
school is not great because it is homelike, 
but because it is truly school-like. 

Individual education is again intensified 
by the fact that the child, as a result of the 
influence of several teachers, is better able 
to see, compare, and choose the strongest 
characteristics of each. Under one teacher 
he is liable to acquire any objectionable 
peculiarity which may be possessed by his 
teacher. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 123 

Whether the departmental teacher gives, 
or probably will give, greater individual 
attention to each pupil is quite another 
matter. But it must be noted that, so far as 
time is concerned, the teacher, under the 
departmental system, has just the same time 
to devote to each pupil in each of the 
pupil's studies as he had under the single- 
teacher plan. Effectiveness in individual 
education is not comprehended by the no- 
tion that each teacher should give time to 
each pupil to attain it, but it is rather 
expressed in the notion that the method of 
each teacher and the organization of each 
school should give the maximum oppor- 
tunity for every pupil to act freely in at- 
taining any given purpose. 

Departmental teaching is simply a 
method of school and class organization 
which tends to offer this freedom. Teach- 
ers under this system may be highly in- 
dividualistic in teaching or not. Their 
opportunities in this regard do not differ 



124 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

materially under either the departmental or 
the single-teacher system. But, as has been 
stated, each pupil has a greatly superior 
opportunity of being differentiated in his 
attainments from all other pupils. 



APPENDIX 

SPECIAL DESCRIPTION OF 
ILLUSTRATIONS 

Special Departmental Room 

The full development of the common 
subject plan of departmental teaching will 
result in the condition that the class teacher 
who specializes manual training and draw- 
ing, for example, will be obliged either to 
use one room for his common subject and 
another for his specialty or combine the two 
equipments as shown in Plate I, page 68. 

This suggestion of combination presup- 
poses that in each school building two or 
three such rooms should be constructed out 
of every twelve. Science and cooking work 
also demand the same development in 
equipment. 

125 



126 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

A Model Common-Study Program 
Plate VI, on page 80 shows the time of 
the common subject brought out in propor- 
tionate contrast to the time for the depart- 
mental studies. The common subject takes 
up the most effective part of the school day 
for the work of any class with its own class 
teacher. In adapting this model, each 
school must modify according to particular 
conditions. , 

Attendance Records 

Where classes are large some time-saving 
device must be used to record attendance in 
the departments. The first plan, found on 
Plate VIII, page 89, shows a leaf of a book 
to be carried by a trusted member of the 
class acting as president or secretary. He 
presents the book in turn to each depart- 
mental teacher who verifies and signs it, 
the custodian then returns the book each 
day to his class teacher. 

The second form, on page 88 (Plate VII) 



APPENDIX 127 

is ruled so as to comprehend the record of 
one month on one page. Circles are made 
by the secretary to indicate "excused from 
room", horizontal lines to indicate absence, 
and lines drawn across circle to indicate 
return to classroom. Vertical lines are 
drawn by class teacher as a means of check- 
ing. 

Monthly Report Card 
The principal advantage of the monthly 
report given on pages 91 and 92 is that 
it gives each departmental teacher an op- 
portunity to record the work of each pupil 
in his department. The blank spaces after 
English may be used for any other subjects 
that the teacher cares to report upon. 

Model Programs 

The programs shown on pages 73, 74, 75, 
and 76 are an adaptation for four classes of 
the model program. 

The meanings of the abbreviations used 



128 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

are believed to be obvious for the most part, 
but a few are here expanded: 
8B — Second half of eighth school year 
8A — First half of eighth school year 
7B — Second half of seventh school year 
7A — First half of seventh school year 

A — Arithmetic or Mathematics 

C — Composition 
Cor — Correspondence 

D — Drawing 
Die — Dictation 

G — Geography 
Gr — Grammar 

H — History 

L — Literature 

M— Music 
M T— Manual Training 

P — Penmanship 

R — Reading 
Sp — Spelling 
S — Science 



APPENDIX 129 



Box for Articles used by Pupils 

The illustrations of a receptacle for the 
common articles used by all children in 
school work, given facing page 97, show 
a device that has been tried with excel- 
lent results. It may be used to hold any 
or all of the following common articles: 
Drawing pencil, writing pencils, pen ruler, 
blotter, eraser, compass, scissors, protractor,, 
triangle, pins, thumb tacks, paper fasteners, 
pen wiper, and pencil sharpener. It is 
carried easily along with the books from 
room to room. Its chief advantages are: 

1. Cleanliness and health. 

Every pupil always uses the same articles 
at all times. They can be cleaned, and they 
never come in contact with the material of 
any other child. 

2. Economy. 

It saves a great amount of time in giving 
out, collecting, counting, and caring for 
material. It also saves expense in that 



I30 DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING 

the responsibility placed upon each child 
through an easy inspection prevents loss of 
articles. 

3. Educative life process. 

It is essential to all right living that every 
worker shall have a place for his tools and 
product. Responsibility for tools cannot be 
taught children unless a place for them be 
provided. Only then can they be taught 
how to care for property in a careful and 
economical way. 



Methods in Elementary 
School Studies 

By BERNARD CRONSON, A. B., Ph.D., Principal of 
Public school, No. 3, New York City. i2mo. Cloth. 
167 pages. $1.25 net. 

This is a brief outline of the author's lectures on teaching the 
principal branches in the elementary course. The subjects treated are 
reading, dictation (including spelling, paragraphing, etc.,) composition, 
grammar, literature, nature study, geography, history, civics and arith- 
metic. The book is interleaved with blank pages, making it a conveni- 
ent note book for the lecture room in normal schools and training 
schools, as well as for teachers in general. 

Classroom Management: Its 
Principles and Technique 

By WILLIAM CHANDLER BAGLEY, Superintendent 
of the Training Department, State Normal School, 
Oswego, N. Y. i2mo. Cloth, xvii+352 pages. $1.25 
net. 

This book considers the problems that are involved in the massing 
of children together for purposes of instruction and training It aims to 
discover how the unit group of the school system— the "class"— can be 
most effectively handled. The topics commonly included in treatises 
upon school management receive adequate attention: the first day at 
school; the mechanizing of routine; the daily program; discipline and 
punishment; absence and tardiness, etc. In addition to these, however, 
a number of subjects hitherto neglected in books of this class are pre- 
sented: The "Batavia system" of class-individual instruction; different 
plans for testing the efficiency of teaching; a new treatment of school 
incentives based upon modern psychology; and a formulation of the 
generally accepted principles of professional ethics as applied to school- 
craft. Appendices include plates showing quality of work that can be 
expected from pupils of different grades and syllabi of topics and 
questions for the use of "observation" classes. 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

64-66 Fifth Ave., NEW YORK 

Boston Chicago Atlanta San Francisco 



The Principles of Secondary 
Education 

By CHARLES DeGARMO, Professor of the Science and 
Art of Education in Cornell University. i2mo. Cloth. 
xii+299 pages. $1.25 net. 

The author discusses the social and individual presuppositions un- 
derlying American secondary education; the chief bases for the selec- 
tion of studies; the classification of studies according to the nature of 
their content; the function and relative educational worth of various 
studies and study groups; and the organization of studies into curricula. 
The ample scope of Professor DeGarmo's work and the thoroughness of 
his analysis will commend this book to teachers as a text-book of unusual 
value. 

A Brief Course in the History 
of Education 

By CHARLES MONROE, Ph.D., Professor of Education 
in Teachers College, Columbia University. i2mo. 
Cloth, xviii+409 pages. $1.25 net. 

This is practically a condensation of Professor Monroe's "Text- 
book in the History of Education," issued more than two years ago, and 
still the most extensive work on the subject in English. The present 
abbreviation has been made in answer to the demands of normal schools 
and teachers' training classes which have not the time to devote to the 
study of the larger text. Nevertheless it treats of all the general 
periods, and of most of the topics discussed in the larger work. 

Methods in Teaching 

Being the Stockton Method in Elementary Schools. By 
MRS. ROSA V. WINTERBURN, of Los Angeles, 
and JAMES A. BARR, Superintendent of Schools at 
Stockton, Cal. i2mo. Cloth, xxii+355 pages. $1.25 net. 

This book is the direct product of the schoolrooms. It treats the 
presentation of subject-matter in the various studies usually taught in 
elementary schools from three points of view — that of the superintendent 
or supervisor, of the teacher and of the pupil. The book grew out of 
the exhibit made by the Stockton schools at the Exposition in St. Louis, 
and later in Portland, which attracted widespread attention because of 
the honesty of the pupils' work, the "method sheets" by teachers, and 
the efficiency of results. Many compositions by young pupils trained 
under this method are given. 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

64-66 Fifth Ave., NEW YORK 

Boston Chicago Atlanta San Francisco 



\PH 6 tdOB 



^. 



uv 



>^ 



J 



/ 



K.^^/ 



6 



